by Sansa Rayne
“Not really. You have a good reason,” I replied.
Her smile extinguished as she changed gears. “You’re right, Abigail. Could you tell me then, why you didn’t take shelter from the rain?”
I sighed. “I didn’t care if I got rained on. It couldn’t make things worse.”
“What do you mean, Abbi? What’s wrong? What happened to you?” She leaned forward, notebook at the ready.
“I met a man. Then he left. Just… gone.”
“Please, tell me what happened.”
I started from the beginning, explaining how I took her advice and went out to meet people, starting with buying an appropriate outfit. I mentioned the couple that entered the club after seeing me, and how Mason appeared.
“What was he like?”
“At the time, I thought he was intense. But also nice, in a way. I don’t know that I would have had the courage to go into the club if not for him.”
“What else?”
I put myself back into my state of mind from that night. It’s amazing how it seems like a blur in one moment, but then I can also remember every detail, like it was imprinted in stone.
“He was very handsome, and his muscles… I’ve lived with farmers, but I’ve never seen somebody that ripped. Like he works out all day.”
Dr. Davis had that excited look from our last session. “Is that what he does? Is he a professional bodybuilder?”
Is he? “I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t ask him.”
“He didn’t say?”
“No. I… I guess we talked about me mostly.”
“How gentlemanly,” Dr. Davis muttered.
“Huh?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just hard to find a man who listens quite so much without talking about himself at all. In my experience.”
Not mine. The only other man I could really count was Brady, and all he talked about was me, the other girls and God’s will. Did I really know anything about him? For six years, he mentioned no family, or any life before Good Souls. It was as if all that mattered to him was keeping me pure and leading me to my ascension.
“Forget it, Abbi. To be fully honest, I can understand him wanting to know more about you. I get that. He saw how you were dressed, and he knew who you were, didn’t he?”
“Yeah… No. I mean, I told him who I was, and he remembered from the news.”
“I see. But he was interested in you before that?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, he saw the way I was fascinated by the performers on stage. He saw in me then that we were cut from the same cloth.”
Dr. Davis shifted in her seat, then reclined. “What did that lead to, Abbi? What happened then?”
She squirmed as I recounted the night Mason and I shared; how much I relished his touch, being controlled, enduring pain. I felt my own fluids beginning to run as I told her about the handcuffs and the spanking. I felt guilty about soiling her clothes, but she told me not to worry.
“Abbi, I want you to remember something for me, okay?”
I gave Dr. Davis my full attention, instead of staring at my feet as I had been throughout the conversation. This seemed important, and I owed her my concentration.
“I’m a professional. I’ve been at this a long time. I’ve had patients tear my shelves off the wall and break them because they got angry. I’ve had patients follow me outside this office. I even had to take out a restraining order against one. A pair of shorts doesn’t matter to me. You can keep those, if you want; I’d be happy if you did.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“But more importantly, Abbi, I want you to know this: nothing you say is going to make me mad, or not want to help you. Don’t hold back, and if you want to get angry, that’s all right. It won’t bother me. Okay?”
“Yes. Thanks, Dr. Davis.”
“Kerri, please.”
“Kerri,” I said.
“Good. So, you were upset that he left without saying goodbye. That’s certainly understandable, Abbi. Anyone would be. Especially if it came after such a meaningful life event. He really didn’t leave anything? No note, no phone number? I find that very surprising. He sounded like you both had a really good time, and that he wanted to teach you more about BDSM.”
“I thought so too.” I shrugged morosely. “There was that one time where he almost left, but I convinced him to stay. Maybe he should have.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was talking about Brady, and whatever I said angered him. He swore, and said he was going to leave. I asked him to stay.”
All traces of levity drained from Dr. Davis’ face. “What did you say? And how did he swear? What did he do?”
“He backed away from me. I think he was… insulted, maybe? I don’t know. It didn’t make any sense. I thought I’d ask him about it later, but then he was gone.”
She nodded. “Sure, that’s good, Abbi. But do you remember what you said?”
“Nothing, really. Just that he kinda reminded me of Brady. The way he was acting. I didn’t mean anything bad by it.”
She seemed relieved. “Abbi, you compared him to a cult leader. A religious extremist. A man like him, who leads a… an alternative lifestyle, potentially… he might not like that.”
“Maybe,” I admitted.
“Or he could have been scared. You have a history that could put a lot of men off, Abbi, I’m sorry to say. Maybe he overcame it that night for the sake of getting what he wanted from you, but when he woke up the enormity of it hit him. It takes a strong person to go through what you did. Maybe he couldn’t handle becoming a part of that. A man who’s strong on the outside can still be weak on the inside.”
“Maybe,” I said again, though I didn’t believe it. I knew that wasn’t true of Mason.
Strength and pain. Perhaps I tapped into the latter somehow. If he had stayed, I might know.
“Abbi, I hope that this doesn’t change things. You acted very bravely, putting yourself out there. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting you to come here with such a significant experience so quickly. I thought you might work up to this a bit more.”
My lip quaked and my eyes burned.
“No no,” Dr. Davis said quickly. “I don’t mean that you what did was wrong! It just surprised me, that you met somebody so quickly. It was very…”
“Lucky?” I supplied.
“I don’t know that I’d say lucky, seeing how it turned out. But yes, it’s hard to make a real connection sometimes. I wish it had turned out differently with Mason, and I know it hurts.”
I wiped away tears with the sleeves of my borrowed shirt.
“I think you should focus on the positives. You had such a great time; Mason opened up a part of yourself that you liked. He wasn’t wrong about that. And I think you would be hurting yourself if you didn’t explore it further.”
I smiled for the first time in days. “Hurting myself.”
Dr. Davis laughed. “No pun intended. But I meant what I said. Losing someone’s affection is painful. Being abandoned is painful, and not in a fun way. But when you find that person who won’t leave you, it makes the discovery that much greater. Do you know what I mean?”
“I do, Kerri, yeah.” I thought back to when Brady found me. I was so hungry, and lost. I felt saved. “I could go back to that club. Maybe I’d see Mason there; I could get him to tell me what the hell happened.”
“If you think that’s a good idea, Abbi. But if you see him again, it might reopen these wounds.”
“I have to know, Kerri.”
She shook her head. “I understand, but you have to accept that you may never know. That’s the way the world works sometimes.”
Does it work in mysterious ways? I thought. Every day since leaving Good Souls made me less and less fond of that particular expression. Elspeth didn’t like it much either back at the farm, and now I knew why.
Elspeth. I had nearly forgotten.
“All right,” I said. “There was more that upse
t me, Kerri.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Els- Ellie called. She woke me up the morning after I met Mason. She woke me up, and that was when I saw he was gone. But she told me she’s moving to the city, and wants to be friends.”
“Abbi, that’s wonderful. What was the issue?”
She asked the question in a slow, smooth voice that made me think she knew the answer; she just wanted to hear me say it.
“Because I betrayed everything I used to believe about ascension. I gave her so much grief, and hours later she’s calling, telling me she forgave me for how I treated her. I felt terrible. Like I didn’t deserve for her to be so nice to me.”
Dr. Davis nodded understandingly. “Abbi, you’re a very sweet person. Ellie forgave you because she knows you weren’t trying to hurt her, that you believed you were trying to help. I think it would make her very happy to hear that you’re discovering this new side of yourself. That you’re putting aside the lies you’ve been fed.”
Putting aside. That’s putting it mildly. I’d screamed my renouncement at the height of ecstasy, and meant it.
“Thanks, Kerri. That makes me feel a lot better.”
“I’m glad. You’re going through so much so quickly. It’s going to be confusing sometimes. Remember, this can be hard for everyone, and that you can always talk to me, and I’ll help in any way I can. Now come, I heard the dryer stop a while ago. Your dress should be ready.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, smearing fresh tears across my cheeks. “Thank you,” I repeated, louder.
Kerri smiled and patted my shoulder. “You’re welcome, Abbi.”
The girl whimpered softly when I opened the door to our motel room. She knew now not to scream.
“Sorry I took so long,” I said, flipping the lock. “Some old bag was paying by check. Took forever.”
She whined through the rectangle of heavy, reflective duct tape sealing her lips together.
“Hungry?”
She blinked as a tear escaped and found its way into the sheets. She’d been bound to the bed all day, ropes securing her wrists to its wiry frame. Sooner or later the hunger would overpower her fear, and she’d eat.
“Whatever you may think, I don’t want to hurt you. Your soul is far too valuable. You know that right?”
She grunted.
I set the bag of supplies from the convenience store down on the bed and took out our turkey sandwiches. I unwrapped one and ate while flipping through the local newspaper. One of these days I’d see the headline: Manhunt for fugitive expands to Decatur. They’d pick up my trail, figure out I was here. Warn the populace.
“Not today,” I said, tossing the paper aside and smiling at the girl. She moaned to herself and shut her eyes.
Poor thing.
“You should be glad. If they were onto me, we’d have to move. Isn’t the bed better than a car trunk?”
Actually, what I’d really have to do to her is even worse than the trunk, but she didn’t need to know that yet.
Maybe this time they won’t pick up the trail. Maybe it’s been long enough and I’m no longer at the top of everyone’s mind. It’s sick, sad world out there, and I’m just a small part of it.
“You don’t think I’m all bad, do you?” I asked.
She opened her eyes, confused and scared. Like I was wearing clown makeup and brandishing a meat cleaver.
“I’m being serious. I’ve taken care of you, haven’t I?”
She looked to the window, averting her gaze.
Poor thing. Probably didn’t want to risk upsetting me. She’d seen the deep sag of my right pocket, the uneven balance a trained law enforcement officer might spot. She knew what I was carrying, and that I’d use it.
“Just another few days, then we’re hitting the road. You’ll like where we’re going, I promise. No more shitty gas station sandwiches, and you’ll never see me again.”
I put my hand on her bare knee and gave it a squeeze. She flinched at the touch, but suppressed the instinct to try to kick me. She was learning.
“Want me to put on the TV?”
No answer.
Just as well.
I reached for the remote, which was bolted to the nightstand. The flatscreen flickered on, tuned to one of the broadcast networks. Time for the early evening news.
“The search continues for a young woman from Topeka who has not been seen in more than two weeks,” said an older anchor, his worn face laden with gravitas. “She was reported missing four days ago by a teacher at the local high school who noticed the string of absences and alerted authorities.”
“Ouch,” I said, shooting the girl a sympathetic look. “Your teacher. No friends, or family. I sure know how to pick ’em, don’t I?”
The girl cried, shaking her head.
“Hey, hey,” I said. I walked over and crouched down, and laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be so much better where we’re going. You’ll see. It’s heaven.”
I spent the rest of the week filling out college applications, particularly writing my personal essay. How could I possibly hope to impart in a few thousand words everything I’d been through? I knew I was far from the only person in her mid-twenties to apply to college for the first time, but most of them had better excuses for the late start. Or, at least, more believable reasons. Was the essay reader going to verify that I really am Abigail Lamb, America’s most famous idiot? How would that look?
Well her SAT scores are good, but she believed she could go straight to heaven.
Maybe it would work, though: if anybody needed a college education, it was me. And maybe colleges would vie for the chance to bring one of the girls from Good Souls into the real world. I could see my smiling face as one of those people on the college pamphlets. I could point to a textbook and smile while a guy took notes. I could do math homework at the dining hall over breakfast. I could walk around campus with a group of my peers looking like I belong.
Yeah, right.
Dr. Davis suggested I make a special appointment with the director of admissions at the colleges I was interested in. She said they’d make special arrangements for a person in my situation. She meant well, but I didn’t want to exploit my circumstances. The less my past contributed to my future, the better.
So that left me trying to write an essay about who I am, and who I’m not. I wrote and erased, wrote and erased, repeating the cycle a dozen times. I tried to be fully serious, but I couldn’t bear to read it. I couldn’t expect admissions to do the same. I tried levity, but attempting to make light of my past didn’t ring true. It was impossible, and after a day I had to reconsider taking Dr. Davis’ advice.
At least the task kept me from thinking about Mason.
By the time Friday came, I had mostly stopped having crying fits, and the warmth returned in my core. I fiddled with the handcuffs. I was glad that they failed to break my window; they were the first restraints I’d ever worn in a loving way, even if that love lasted less than one night. I played with them, handcuffing one wrist to a chair, always careful to keep the key in a pocket so I wouldn’t put myself in a bind I couldn’t get out of. It was fun, but not the same as being tied for real. I thought about going back to Dante’s, but I wasn’t sure I could face going there by myself. Still, I had to try again. For a moment I wondered if Ellie would come with me, but I couldn’t ask that of her. I doubted that she enjoyed being bound the way I did.
When my phone rang that afternoon, I didn’t recognize the number. The light hairs on my arm rose and my heart raced; this wasn’t another social worker calling for a check-in. This was someone else, I could feel it.
“Hello?”
“Abigail. It’s Mason.”
Shit. Did I give him my number? I thought I remembered the night so well; I didn’t think I had. He could have found it, if he knew who to call, and was convincing enough. But he also knew where I lived; he could have just rung my bell.
“Hi,” I said coldly. I debated hanging up r
ight away, blocking the number.
“I’m sorry for leaving,” he said. “It was a shitty thing to do.”
“It was.” My hand shook as fury rose. I could have crushed that phone in my grip.
“Meet with me. I’ll make it up to you.”
“How?” I held the phone away from my mouth as I sniffed and blinked away my tears, then brought it back. “How could you do that, after what we shared? Do you have any idea how important that was to me?”
“I can only imagine,” he said. In his voice I heard regret, but also impatience. As if apologizing was a task he had to complete before he could move on to something more important. He’d have to do better.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“Why should I give you another chance?”
I heard him sigh. I hope he knew his next words would decide whether I hung up or not. It might not be quite as harsh as walking out, but I’d take it.
“You probably shouldn’t,” he said at last. “There’s a lot I want to say, but I don’t want to do it over the phone. I know you’ve been through a terrible trauma. I have too. I think we could help each other.”
It was a kind offer, I’ll give him that.
“I’ve already got a therapist,” I said.
He barked a quick laugh. “And I’m sure they’re doing very important work. But this person can’t tie you up and make you come. They can’t fulfill the need you have. I can.”
“You haven’t met my therapist.” Dr. Davis always squirmed when I spoke of my need for punishment. She would probably love Dante’s.
He laughed some more, genuinely amused, and surprised too. “All right, Abigail. I don’t know what else to say. You’re hurt, and that’s fair. I’d like another chance, if you’re willing. We could meet for dinner, my treat. Somewhere really nice.”
Could I accept Mason’s invitation for the sake of dining at a fancy restaurant? I’d never, in my life, eaten anywhere nicer than a local diner. And it would give me an excuse to buy a real dress…
But as much as I disliked what Mason did, I wasn’t in the habit of exploiting people. I couldn’t show up to dinner if I wasn’t open to listening to his apology.
