by Terri Pray
God, she hadn’t done anything wrong, so why was she now shaking like a leaf?
Tyler didn’t say a word as he opened the package and spread the pictures out across the table. There she was, in all her glorious nakedness on the cross. A whipping post. A bed?
A bed? What the fuck? They’d never been on a bed together.
“Interesting, don’t you think, love?” Tyler looked over at her, his smile warming her heart. “Especially the one’s on the bed.”
What had Tyler so interested in those pictures? What was she missing? Naomi reached across the table and pulled one closer to her, scanning it for something she was missing. “This – this isn’t me.”
“Yes it is, you can deny it all you want, but…”
“Jake,” she tapped the picture, then looked at him calmly, “I have a scar on my left thigh. Everyone knows that, yet it’s not here in this picture. And the woman in this picture, she has tan lines, faint but I can see them. She’s bigger than I am too, around the breasts.”
“You’re just trying to cover your betrayal. The woman in the picture is you. It just didn’t pick up the scar.”
“That’s impossible, well, unlikely at least. You see, that scar stands out. Looks like you cobbled this one together so quickly you forgot about the scar. And anyone can see that the woman in the picture has bigger breasts than I do. You made a hash of this one. Some of the others – there are shadows in the pictures where there shouldn’t be, unless you’d removed the source of the shadow. And here, this one, you can see the edge of my Master’s knee next to the cross. You didn’t quite clip him all out.” The more she looked at the pictures the more the problems seemed to leap out at her from the glossy sheets.
“Here as well,” Tyler added, “there’s a problem, this picture, the woman on this bed has her nipple pierced, but you can only just see the glint of metal. Unless I’ve missed something about the woman I live with, the woman I love, she’s never had a piercing there. Or anywhere else except her ears.”
Jake coughed, and snatched the photograph back, before he began to grab for the rest of them. It didn’t work. Both Danny and Tyler grabbed for them.
“Give them back,” Jake snarled.
“No, I think not. You’ve used these to hurt and frame a woman who has stood by her master through some of the hardest of times. If you think I’m going to let you walk out with them…”
“Keep them. I have copies on my computer,” he snapped, standing up as he took a step back away from the booth.
“And if I find out you’re showing them to anyone, claiming they are proof of an affair, or anything else that is untrue, then I’ll chase you down and sue you for everything you have,” Tyler growled, his gaze narrowed, jaw clenched.
“You and what money?”
“Mine.” Danny stood up slowly, rolling out his shoulders. “And you’re banned. Lifetime ban. I’ll be sending copies of these pictures along with the statement that they were faked, photoshopped, whatever the right term is for it, to every club and munch group I can find within a three state radius.”
“You can’t…”
“Yes, I can and I will.” Danny didn’t even flinch. “Get out. Now.”
“You asked me here. You told me you wanted to talk about this.” Jake folded his arms across his chest.
“And now I’m telling you to leave. Get out, Jake. Before I have to call the bouncers and have you escorted out.”
For a moment no one moved, then Jake lowered his arms, turned, and walked, stiffly, out of sight.
“It’s over.” Tyler sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“No, it’s a beginning, not an ending.” Danny slipped back into the booth, looking at both of them. “I’ve sat back and watched you two try and remove yourself from the world over the last eighteen months. I understand you went through something terrible. I can see that, not just in the way Tyler is stuck in that chair, but the way you look at each other. You’ve let your fears get the better of you. That has to end, now. I think you both know that, don’t you?”
For a moment Naomi feared the worst when she saw Tyler flinch, a flash of anger flying across his face. Then it faded. He closed his eyes and nodded, trembling slightly.
“We’ve made some mistakes. No, that isn’t fair. I’ve made some mistakes and Naomi has been forced to live through them.”
“No, oh please, don’t think of it in that way. I’ve made some nasty mistakes as well. Leaning on Jake was one of them. I should have come to you, Danny, or turned to Tyler instead. But I have to accept I made a mistake and move on from that. Just as Tyler has chosen to move on from his mistakes as well. We have to be strong now, and we can be. It’s not going to be easy, we both know that I think.”
Tyler nodded. “Naomi’s right. And, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry your club was brought into the middle of this, Danny. We’re both grateful for the help you’ve given us here. I couldn’t ask for a better friend than you. Neither of us could. I need to ask one thing of you though.”
“Ask away.” Danny nodded. “You know I will help where I can.”
“Be there, when we need a friend. I’m going to make mistakes, we both are, in the coming months, but I know we can’t pull through this on our own now. I made that mistake once before and I’m not going to again. She’s worth swallowing my pride for. I should have learned that before the accident, but I’m grateful I’ve been given a second chance with her.”
Naomi looked at him, smiling. She’d never felt as proud of him as she did in this moment. How many outside of the lifestyle would have known that part of being a Master was having the strength to admit when something had gone wrong? Not many. Hell, there were too many in the scene who refused to accept that part either. People like Jake proved that one over and over again.
She was lucky.
It had taken Jake and an accident to show her just how lucky she truly was, but from this point on she wasn’t about to take their love for granted. Not any more.
The End