Call Me Killer

by Linda Barlow

  Another woman might have yelped, but she laughed. Rusty could do no wrong as far as she was concerned, and the dog returned her affection in full measure.

  He loved seeing her laugh. She was such a sunny creature, bright and happy, always quick with a smile. This made it all the more incongruous to remember the way her body had gone rigid with fear last night, and the way sorrow had wracked her as she had forced out, between clenched teeth, her confession that her vile ex-husband had abused her.

  He was still processing that, and what it might mean for them. He didn’t know much more than she had told him last night. She really didn’t want to talk about it, so he hadn’t learned the details. He had tried asking a few questions, but her answers had been evasive.

  What she had wanted to do was make love, and he was glad of that. Last night, after the panic attack, he had loved her in the gentlest possible manner. He had tried to arrange things such that she was on top most of the time, and free to move and, if she got anxious, to escape.

  He had taken her out of the dungeon, closing and locking it behind them. He figured she'd be more comfortable in his bedroom, where there was little hint of his lifestyle. He had been so careful that she had laughed at him, saying, "It’s okay, I’m not fragile, you needn’t hold back."

  This morning, when she had awakened him by initiating sex, he had relaxed and been more playful. Viola was not shy, and she loved sex. She still had the same adventuresome spirit she’d had at eighteen. In bed, she was lusty and uninhibited. She was inventive, too, and quick to pick up on his subtle cues. She gave pleasure as generously as she received it. Together, their bodies worked as a team, as if they’d been lovers for years.

  Even so, instinct had warned him to stay away from anything that might cross the line into BDSM. No ropes, no restraints. No sex toys.

  He was even more careful about what he permitted himself to say. He had screwed that up royally last night. He had no idea why he had come out with a quote from Bart with the last woman in the world who would want to hear such a thing; it was a piece of idiocy that made him seriously wonder what the fuck was wrong with him.

  A laughing Viola ran up to him with a panting, grinning, slobbering Rusty. She tossed him the stick and bent over, holding her sides in mock exhaustion. "Your turn! He’s run me ragged. He has so much energy!"

  Stephen grinned, took the stick, and heaved it as far as he could throw it down the beach. Rusty happily shot after it while Stephen gathered up Viola in his arms and kissed her laughing upturned face. "You’re all wet."

  "I know—he shook himself all over me." This didn’t appear to faze her.

  "It’s windy; we should go inside before you catch a chill."

  She sighed. "I should pack up and head for home. I have work waiting for me. Papers to grade and the end of semester stuff to prepare."

  "Not yet. Stay a few more hours."

  "I don't want to outstay my welcome. I know you writer types—you can only be social for a little while, then you need your creative solitude."

  He snorted. "I'm hardly the archetypal author recluse. I'm a social butterfly compared to some writers. And I love having you around." He grinned at her. "Besides, I wanna fuck you again."

  She laughed. "You're so romantic."

  When she did finally get ready to leave a couple of hours later, she seemed to droop a bit. Something in the atmosphere between them seemed to tighten.

  "Stephen?"

  "Viola?"

  She avoided his eyes as she said, "Maybe I shouldn't say this, but it’s still bothering me that you could quote a line from your nasty hero that means: ‘I’m going to torture you now and get off on it’ while you and I were having sex."

  Uh-oh. He had a bad feeling about this. She wasn’t going to let it go. Worse, he couldn’t really blame her. Why had he done it? He didn’t know. Bart was in there, straining to get out? Like some fantasy figure from a horror movie who was trying to find a way to embody himself in the real world? No, that was insane.

  "I know it must seem strange to you," he said slowly. "It might be because I'm working hard now. It's a creatively intense period." He tried to lighten the mood by adding, "That’s one of the hazards of dating a writer."

  "It’s one thing to date a kinky writer, but it would be something else to date Bart."

  "I don’t think he goes out on dates. I can’t quite picture that, can you? What’s the 16th century equivalent of dinner and a movie?"

  She giggled, to his great relief.

  "What does Bart do for sex? When he's not raping someone, I mean. He’s not married, right? I don’t recall any mention of a wife."

  "He’s not married, no. He’s absorbed by his job. Protecting the realm and all that."

  "Wouldn’t that have been a bit unusual in those days? Didn’t most people marry young and begin reproducing?"

  "Yeah, I guess. I haven’t addressed that side of his life much. Maybe I should. Hmmm. A girlfriend for Bart? How would he handle that? Awkwardly, no doubt." He spoke lightly, but it was an intriguing idea. There was a huge hole in his current story. What if he added a new character, a woman who captured Bart’s attention for something other than the usual reason of being a threat to the Queen?

  "I can’t quite picture him living happily ever after," she said.

  "Neither can I, but I can see him falling for someone and not knowing how to deal with the feelings. He would fuck it up, of course."

  "Just don’t make her turn out to be a bad guy whom he has to kill in the end. That would be such a cliché."

  "Hey, don’t start reviewing the book before it’s finished. You’ll get your chance, Professor."

  She laughed again. As long as they could laugh together, they could solve anything, right?

  Chapter 27

  Before she left to drive back to the college, Viola seemed to get fretful again. When he asked her what was wrong, she shook her head. He grasped her by one wrist and pulled her to him. "You're worrying. I can tell. Talk to me, babe."

  She puffed out a deep breath and said, "You told me on our first night together that kinky sex wasn’t a requirement. Did you mean that?"

  Had he said that? He thought back, trying to recapture what had been going on in his mind. He'd just met her again and he hadn’t been thinking long-term. "There are no requirements, Viola. We'll take it slowly and work it out. Come here and let me hold you. "

  She came into his arms and laid her head against his shoulder. "I wouldn’t want to panic like that again. Not only for my sake, but also for yours."

  "Listen. We have a strong sexual connection. We can handle challenges. You had a horrible experience with your ex, but now that I know that, I’ll be more careful. As long as we relax and have fun together, we'll be fine."

  "This morning was wonderful. I enjoyed our lovemaking enormously, and I thought you did, too. Even though it was vanilla."

  "It was wonderful," he agreed, smiling back. "And vanilla is one of my favorite flavors."

  "What if I decided that I’d rather avoid anything too weird? How much would that disappoint you?"

  "Anything that frightens you, we won't do. I want you to be happy and at ease in my bed."

  "I want the same for you," she said earnestly. "That’s why I’m trying to understand how important BDSM is for you. Could you be happy not doing it? Or is it an essential aspect of your sexuality?"

  Damn, he thought. There was no easy solution here. He really liked her. He wanted this to work out. He knew he had to tread carefully while she worked it all through in her mind and heart.

  On the other hand, he wasn't going to lie to her. He'd always had dark desires, and he'd been active in the BDSM scene for several years now. There was no way he could restrict himself to all-vanilla sex, no matter how wonderful the woman was in other respects. He couldn't live without getting some of his kink fulfilled any more than a gay person could live happily straight.

  Since she had now asked the question in several different way
s, he decided to stop ducking it. "If you’re asking if I could give it up entirely, the answer is no. It’s difficult to remember a time when I didn’t have kinky fantasies, and I do enjoy acting them out. I'm not looking for 24/7, but I wouldn't have built a dungeon if I didn't intend to use it."

  She listened, looking thoughtful.

  "It wouldn’t have to be with you, though. I mean, there are other options available for recreational sex—" he cut himself off as her face fell. Dammit. I’m an idiot, he thought.

  "Really." Her voice was flat.

  "I just mean that I have friends in the scene."

  "Friends you could hook up with for dungeon sex?"

  "That wouldn’t be my preference. I’d much rather enjoy a broad range of erotic activities with one cherished partner than do conventional sex with one woman and kink with somebody else."

  "But you couldn’t be faithful to a woman whose erotic range wasn’t similarly broad?"

  "I’m trying to be honest. You did want a straight answer from me, right?"

  She swallowed. "Yes. Thank you. It’s what I suspected anyway. The bottom line is that it is a requirement."

  He tried to regain some ground. "In an exclusive, long-term relationship, I guess that would be true. But, in fairness, you and I haven't even had the 'is this a relationship' discussion, much less the 'should we make this relationship exclusive?' one."

  She blushed deeply. "You're right. Of course we haven't."

  Shit. That hadn't come out quite the way he'd intended. Now she was going to think he wasn’t serious about her. But this was only their second weekend together. He didn’t have to be serious yet, did he?

  I am so fucking this up.

  The thing was, he knew one thing for certain—Viola liked being teased, tormented and hurt. She liked being spanked, having her hair pulled and her body handled roughly. She liked being ordered about and dominated. A woman didn't have orgasm after orgasm if her erotic responses weren't being intensely stimulated.

  She had liked it the summer after she'd graduated high school and she still liked it now, despite what her creep of a husband had done to her.

  Deciding he probably couldn’t make things worse, he said, "Can I remind you of something? When you were a virgin with no experience, I took a piece of rough rope in my hands and you, with no prompting, held out your wrists to be bound."

  "With no prompting? You looked at me with that, that look—and I knew you what you wanted. You had been teaching me stuff all afternoon; it was one more thing I’d never done."

  He felt himself beginning to smile. "You told me that I'd given you your first orgasm. Is that true?"

  "Yes."

  "I had a first that day, too. I had never dared act out my fantasy of tying a girl up for sex. I was a BDSM virgin until I met you. We did our first scene with each other, babe. And unless I'm very much mistaken, you enjoyed it."

  She didn't meet his eyes, but she nodded, unable to deny it.

  "So when you tell me nearly a decade later that you don’t want to have kinky sex, I can't help being a bit skeptical."

  "I just asked what would happen if I didn’t….if I couldn’t…." She stopped. "You're not going to want a partner who freaks out every time you take her to your dungeon."

  "That's not going to happen. You didn't panic over kink. You panicked over something specific. Something I said that caused you to flash back to your fucking husband's abuse."

  She thought about this for a while. But when she spoke, she said, "That day in the boathouse was really the first time you did anything kinky?"

  "It was. You made me feel comfortable enough to take that risk. You were so sweet, so passionate, and so accepting and non-judgmental. When I came at you in that dark little shed with that twist of rope, awkward and nervous and uncertain about what I was doing, you trusted me not to hurt you. I hope you’ll be able to trust me again now."

  "I would like to, Stephen." There was a catch in her voice. "It never even occurred to me that you might hurt me. No one ever had. But you did hurt me. I waited for you. I was certain you'd be back for me. I fell crazy in love with you that day, but you disappeared."

  Okay, it seemed he could make it worse, after all. "I’m so sorry," he said, really floundering now.

  "I gave you my body and my trust, but you never even answered my emails. Now you’re back, with all your years of experience set against my years of marital wretchedness and abuse. I’m not the same sunny, carefree girl I was that summer, so I can’t blame you if you’re disinclined to call this, this, whatever it is, a ‘relationship.’"

  She fled into the living room, to one of the large windows, where she stood staring out to sea. He moved in behind her and slid his arms around her waist, resting his chin lightly on the top of her head. He loved the fragrance of her beautiful hair, the silky softness of her skin.

  When she remained resistant, he murmured, "I'm sorry, love. Of course it’s a relationship. I hope it will be a long, happy one, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure of that."

  He felt the tension drain from her body—she went from being rigid and stiff to supple and soft, and he felt once again the sharp, driving pulse in his dick that she always inspired in him. She turned to settle into his arms, and raised her lips in a peace offering. He kissed her gently and drew her closer, while she nuzzled his neck and ran her fingers over his shoulders in a tender way that made him want to shelter and protect her always.

  "I’m sorry I’m such a mess. The last thing I want is to turn into Psycho Damaged Chick. I want to get my old self back—that happy, adventurous girl I was when we met. But I seem to have lost her somewhere along the way."

  "I’ve dated one or two Psycho Damaged Chicks, and trust me, you’re a long way from winning that title." He stroked her cheek, and touched her bottom lip with his thumb. "As for that old self of yours, she’s still in there. I can see her, laughing, shining. Come on—smile for me."

  She drew a couple of deep breaths, then tilted back her head and grinned. Mischief lit up her blue eyes. "Relationship, relationship, relationship," she teased him.

  He made an elaborate show of wincing, as if the word had sent him into a tailspin, and she laughed. "Deer in the headlights, Silkwood? Who’s panicking now?" She punched him lightly in the bicep. "Relax. You’re such a male."

  He felt an almost breathtaking relief. Just like that, she put an end to the uncomfortable discussion. A moment later, she made an innocuous comment about the Celtics game that was on that evening, and soon they were laughing and joking about their favorite professional sports teams.

  Wow. I am serious about her, he thought.

  Chapter 28

  Viola was having a rough week. The end of semester rush was on at the college, with students panicking about work that was due but unfinished. And she was hard-pressed to get her final exams prepared and the various assignments and term papers graded. She seemed to catch the students' anxiety. Or was it her own that was tormenting her?

  Her nights were restless, too. In the middle of the week, she woke from a darkly sexual and threatening dream in which Derek had changed back and forth into Stephen in a manner that freaked her out.

  When she jerked into full consciousness, her heart was running hurdles in her chest. It seemed to flop back into place as she sat up, only to race off at top speed as if it were trying to out-pump all the other hearts in the neighborhood. Sweat broke out and her intestines cramped. A feeling of doom descended and once again, she thought, "Fuck. I'm having another goddamn false heart attack."

  Without Stephen’s warm body and comforting voice to calm her, the attack persisted for what seemed like forever. This sucked. Nobody would even know if she lost consciousness and died. She had her cell phone in her slippery palm, wondering if she should dial 911 and declare a medical emergency. But then she thought how embarrassing it would be if she summoned an ambulance when there was nothing wrong with her.

  She finally remembered to breathe fr
om deep in her belly and exhale slowly. She began to shiver, and she had to pee. When she got up to go to the bathroom, her legs felt so weak she was afraid she might fall. It was two in the morning and pitch-dark, which didn’t help. She didn’t want to call and wake one of her friends at this time of night just because she was feeling panicky.

  She went into the kitchen to make herself a soothing cup of hot chocolate, and then curled up on her living room sofa to drink it. She wished she could stop stressing. She'd never thought of herself as a worrier, but Derek and the damn divorce must have changed her.

  Stephen wasn't helping, either, she decided. She kept hearing his Bad Boy voice urging her to "scream now for me."

  Stephen and his damned Bartholomew Giles.

  She knew it made no sense to equate the two, but he had that weird-ass medieval dungeon.

  Was she really safe in there with him? What if he assaulted her? What if he raped her? What if he put her in the hospital as Derek had done?

  Her brain hurt. None of those things, she told herself irritably, were ever going to happen. Stephen was warm, sweet, and affectionate. He made her laugh. He was a genuinely nice man, who had comforted her when she’d been freaking out. He'd handled her panic attack with patience and understanding. He'd given her tender and reassuring aftercare.

  The thing was, Derek had seemed trustworthy, too, until he’d beaten her unconscious. As far as she'd known, her ex had never harbored any violent fantasies. He hadn’t been into chains or floggers or mock-torture devices. He hadn’t created any fictional psychopaths who specialized in brutal inquisitions.