Void

by Cassy Roop

  I felt his warm lips press into the curve at my back, and I stilled. Then suddenly he withdrew from me and instantly I wanted to beg him for more. I let my knees give out from underneath me as I came to rest fully on my front, absorbing the coolness of the sheets and allowed them to cool my overheated body. I felt a tear fall from the corner of my eye and absorb into the soft material of the scarf. Whatever the hell just happened scared me.

  What the hell was I feeling? My body quaked to the point I felt like I was seizing. I wasn’t cold, but the complete opposite. I felt my chest tighten as if a vice grip were around my ribcage. So many feelings that I hadn’t ever felt before began to force their way out of my body and I began to feel something else that I had only ever read about.

  Panic.

  Fear.

  I began to thrash against the restraints, feeling the leather bite into my skin as I tugged.

  “Miss Lane! Please calm down. Are you okay?”

  “No!” I yelled continuing to fight against the restraints. I felt him return, removing the cuffs from my hands and as soon as I was free, I scrambled off the bed, my body falling to the floor with a heavy thud. I quickly removed the headphones from my head and then reached for the blindfold, but was stopped by a warm pair of hands.

  “No. Do not remove the blindfold. Breathe, Miss Lane. Breathe.” Sinclaire said in a soothing voice as he cupped my chin in his hands and stroked my cheeks with the pad of his thumbs. Slowly, I felt the panic begin to subside and my breathing begin to even out.

  “Stay right here while I get you something to wear home.” Sinclaire instructed. I stayed like he had asked me because for some strange reason, he seemed to be soothing to me. I felt like I could trust him as ironic as it sounded seeing that he was just as much a stranger as my client was.

  “Stand up, please.” I heard him ask, and I rose to my feet to stand in front of him. I heard him let out a puff of air before he placed a soft piece of fabric over my head and I slipped my arms through the holes. It felt as luxurious as cashmere as the material came to rest mid-thigh, just long enough to cover the stockings I still wore.

  “That should keep you warm until I get you home. Please leave the blindfold on until then.” I nodded as he told me to slip the arms into my jacket and took my arm in his to lead me from the room. I looked behind me, stupid I know, seeing as I couldn’t see anything, as if trying to say goodbye to whoever it was that gave me not only the best orgasm of my life, but also so many other things I’ve never felt before, no matter how much it scared me.

  All I felt was blackness, as if he were no longer in the room. It made me wonder who he was. Something that was also new to me. And for the first time in my life, as Sinclaire led me from the room and out of the building, I realized something.

  I cared.

  THE ANNOYING SOUND of my phone buzzing on the table beside my bed woke me up from one of the best sleeps of my life. I yawned, stretching and noticed the delicious soreness of my body that reminded me that last night really did happen. Squinting, I looked over at the alarm clock.

  Ten a.m.

  Only one person would be calling me at this time in the morning. I picked up my phone to confirm the person on the other end. I groaned.

  “Lexie, seriously. You better have a good reason for calling me this early.”

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. It felt like I had barely gone to sleep after being up half of the night replaying the events with “mystery client” over and over in my mind. I also thought about the strange way in which he conducted business and how nice and soothing Sinclaire was to me. How many women had he brought to—wherever the hell it was that I was taken—and fucked them into a near oblivion?

  “I need you to get dressed and get over here, now.”

  She sounded stern. Lexie was usually a pretty happy-go-lucky type of person until you fucked with her business. She became a rabid bear in heat whenever one of her girls was threatened, or a client didn’t comply with the rules of the agency.

  “What the hell is going on, Lexie?” I asked, sitting up in the bed and removing the comforter from my legs. I still had on the red silk stockings underneath my cotton nightgown. I stared at them, once again remembering the night before.

  “You know I don’t like discussing business over the phone, Nicola.”

  “I told you not to call me that.”

  “Well, then listen to me, Jericho, and get your ass over here. You have twenty minutes.”

  She hung up on me. I stared at my phone for several minutes after the screen had gone black. Lexie had never hung up on me before, so whatever was going on must have been serious.

  After brushing my teeth and hair, I slipped on a pair of black leggings and looked for a sweater to wear in my closet when I came across the cashmere sweater dress that Sinclaire put me in last night. I ran my hand down the soft material all the way to the sleeve and massaged it between my fingers. I pulled it from my hanger and lifted it up to my nose, inhaling deeply. If I tried really hard, I could still make out the woodsy smell of my “mystery client” and the pleasure I instantly felt shocked me. Usually I had to have the heavy petting and at least a small amount of foreplay to get into the mood, but one whiff of the man’s scent and my body came alive.

  I slipped the dress over my head and let the hem come to rest at my mid-thigh just as it had the night before. I reached for a belt in my closet and adjusted it to sit at the top of my waist and paired it with my black knee-high leather boots. As I pulled the zipper up, they reminded me of the leather that bound my wrists last night and I pulled the sleeves of the sweater back to see the faint red marks that were still present. A surge of electricity swam through me, sending currents to each of my limbs and a tingle to my scalp.

  No man had ever affected me the way my mystery client had before. Hell, no person had ever affected me that way before. I never even felt those kind of strong emotions the night my parents died in the plane crash. When they died, I felt hurt, but not enough to send me into a downward spiral that most people would fall into after they lost loved ones. Truth be told, I barely knew my parents.

  Paula and Michael Forbes were practically strangers to me. I was born Nicola Marie Forbes, but after their death and I got into my current profession, I started going by Jericho Lane. I still used my given name for legal matters, but used Jericho as a means to avoid my past life. My father, I soon learned after his death, was involved with some rather shady people. People who apparently wanted to take out their frustrations on me when he died and tried to pry their money out of me. The surprise was on them when I told them there wasn’t any money, not even anything for me to survive on. It didn’t stop their relentless pursuit though.

  I grabbed my purse from the counter and made sure to secure the lock on my condo. It was another freezing New York day. I ventured outside and slipped my sunglasses over my eyes before hailing a cab. The good thing about living in New York was the cabs and the subway. I didn’t have the need for a car, and therefore didn’t have to pay the ridiculous amount of money it would cost to garage the damn thing.

  It took a little over fifteen minutes to get through traffic to Alexandra’s “office” downtown. It was a small store disguised as a flower shop just on the outskirts of Manhattan. Sure, it was a legitimate business in the front of the store, having several employees who worked there during the few short hours it was open, but the real money maker was in the back. That is where the conference room was, as well as several rooms made up for clients to use if they preferred to conduct their sessions there as opposed to a hotel or their home.

  I waved at the two young women putting together arrangements as I walked in and proceeded to the back in search of Lexie. I found her pouring over paperwork, her nose buried in the forms in front of her as her glasses hung from the tip of her nose. She was older than me, by several years in fact. I thought she was at least a decade older than me, but when I tried to ask her, she told me to shut up. She was sweet, in the domineering mo
therly sort of way, but also a fucking snake if you pissed her off.

  “What is so damn important that you insist I high-tail my ass over here in person?” I asked as I plopped down in the chair across from her desk, and let my purse fall to the floor with a thud. She looked at me, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder. Without saying a word, she rose from the chair and walked to the office door and closed it before returning to her seat.

  “This must be serious?” I asked as I watched her steeple her fingers under her chin.

  “This is for your ears only, and I don’t need any of the other girls hearing it. It doesn’t leave this office and the only person you are to discuss it with is me, understood?”

  “Um, okay…” I said, drawing out the last word. My brow arched in curiosity and I watched as she straightened some papers and placed a paperclip to hold them together and then tossed them over to me.

  “What the fuck is this?” I asked as I picked up the paperwork and looked at her expectantly. She reached for her coffee cup and took a long sip before setting it back down and licking her lips. Sitting back in her chair, she nodded her head in the direction of the papers in my hand.

  “That, my dear, is a contract.”

  “A contract?” I questioned repeating what she just said.

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, Lexie. I give. A fucking contract for what?”

  “Well, it seems you impressed a certain high paying client of ours last night and he wants to schedule your next twelve sessions with him. Once a week for the next twelve weeks.”

  “What?” I asked in disbelief as I started to rapidly flick through the papers.

  “You heard me, don’t act stupid, Jericho, it’s beneath you. He had some rules and stipulations about the contract though. You can’t ‘service’ anyone but him in the next twelve weeks. You are to remain blindfolded during each session, and be on call if he were to require an extra session during the week.”

  Even though I felt excited about the fact that my “mystery client” wanted a contract with me, it also angered me a little to be so demanding of my time.

  Excitement.

  Anger.

  Two things I rarely experienced. What the fuck was this man doing to me? I felt awkward being nearly thirty years old and have never gotten angry enough to want to punch someone, or feel that nervous excitement I felt as I looked through the contract.

  “Lexie, I can’t afford to limit myself to one client a week for the next twelve weeks. I have a condo to finish paying for, living expenses, and other things.

  “Oh, I think you will. He is offering ten grand per session.”

  My jaw hit the floor.

  THERE WERE A MOUNTAIN of case files sitting on my desk when I arrived at the clinic the next morning. My uncle took it upon himself to have his secretary bring all of the important files to me first thing so that I had the opportunity to go through them. His words, not mine.

  I sat my briefcase at the foot of my desk and settled myself into the comfort of my chair. My secretary came in carrying a cup in her hand and sat it down in front of me. The warm vapor and aroma of the particular gourmet French roast coffee that helped me get my day going, filtered through my nose, giving me a surge of energy from just the scent alone.

  “Thank you, Laura Lee. You know just how to start my day out right,” I said, smiling up at her and reaching for my cup to take a sip of the hot, fragrant liquid.

  “Well, I better. I’ve been working for you for nearly four years, Mr. Gunn. I should know by now,” she replied chuckling.

  Laura Lee was a forty-four year old divorcee with a soft voice and sweet smile. She was petite and slightly on the rotund side, but her personality made her very attractive. She was constantly turning down passes from the patients that walked in through our door, saying that one husband was enough for a lifetime. She always wore her dark gray, peppered hair in a bun at the nape of her neck and some sort of blouse with a long flowing skirt. Her make-up was kept clean, giving her a fresh look.

  “How many times have I asked you to call me Andris?”

  She tapped one of her unpolished nails to her lips and looked up at the ceiling as if she were contemplating my question.

  “Probably for about as long as I’ve been working for you, Mr. Gunn,” she smiled.

  “So that’s how it’s going to be?” I asked, joining in on her laughter.

  “Your uncle has you biting at the bit already, doesn’t he?” She asked as she nodded towards the stack of folders on my desk.

  “No rest for the weary.”

  “Well,” she said, leaning in and placing her palms on the desk and looking over her shoulder before turning back to me, “when you are the chief in charge next week, hopefully you will not be as bull-headed or…”

  “An asshole?” I interrupted.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Don’t worry, Laura Lee. When I am in charge there will be a lot of changes. But for now,” I said, pausing to look at the folders once more and sighing, “I have to be good and get through all of these. Then I can decide which ones are the important ones for me to keep and which ones I can give to Daryn and Bruce.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am so very pleased that you are nothing like your uncle.”

  I smiled at her and she winked before turning to walk out of my office.

  I reached for the stack, separating them in half and started on the pile closest to me.

  A famous NBA player who had a sex addiction.

  A young female who had been sexually abused.

  There was a patient who suffered from panic attacks and had a great fear of bridges. Another who thought Santa Clause was his brother and that his mother was the Tooth Fairy.

  I paused when I got to the last file in the stack because it looked different from the others. It was thick with notes that not only had my grandfather made, but also my uncle. Flipping it open I noticed that the client had been attending our practice since she was five years old.

  Alexithymia. The inability to recognize emotions and their subtleties. According to my uncle’s notes, the nearly thirty-year-old female had a limited understanding of what caused feelings, had a constricted style of thinking, was hypersensitive to physical sensations, and she was detached or tentative with others. This was probably one of the first cases of that condition that I had to deal with. I continued to flip through the pages and pages of notes consisting of conversations with my grandfather and father, intrigued by this woman.

  When I got to the back, I saw a session in which my uncle talked with her about the death of her parents. Daughter of Senator Michael Forbes who was killed in a plane crash along with his young wife, when the woman, Nicola, was just in high school.

  Nicola Forbes was informed of her parents passing today. Her teachers thought it best that she was told in the presence of her psychiatrist just in case this incident was the start of a chain reaction that would set her off. I sat her in the same chair that she sat in when she first started coming to our clinic and had sessions with my father. I watched her as her eyes wandered around the room, the surroundings familiar to her, but still seeming new. She was older now at fourteen years old; growing up in front of our eyes, but yet, not changing in too many ways. She had a plethora of support surrounding her, including two of her instructors from school as well as the counselor and principal. They all stood around her as she sat in the chair in front of me like she had so many times before.

  “Nicola?”

  “Yes, Doctor Gunn?”

  “We have brought you here today because we have some news we need to tell you. Your teachers are all here for support, as well as Principal Masters.”

  She nodded her head and looked at the three women standing behind her before turning her piercing blue eyes back to me.

  “Your mother and father were killed in a plane crash today on their way to Washington D.C. The plane went down so
mewhere in Pennsylvania. We don’t know what happened, or what could have caused the crash, but we do know that no one survived.”

  I waited for the moment when the switch would flip on in her brain; the moment that we all thought would trigger some sort of reaction out of her.

  But nothing came.

  She sat stoically staring at me, not a tear to her eyes nor a change in her breathing. She sat poised, ladylike, and stiff like a socialite would be expected to present themselves.

  “Do you understand what I just told you?”

  “Yes, Sir. I do. My parents were killed in a plane crash.”

  “And how does that make you feel?

  “How is it supposed to make me feel?”

  That was the same response I got out of her every time I questioned what she was feeling. I took a deep breath, frustrated that after nine years there was absolutely no progress made with this patient. I have waited and watched this girl grow up. The emptiness inside of her becomes more prevalent as time goes by.

  “Well, in your situation, most people would feel sad. They would probably cry and mourn for their loved ones.”

  “Well, Doctor Gunn, I don’t know what love is. I don’t know what love feels like. I would cry, only I don’t know what would cause me to do that. My parents, if you didn’t notice, didn’t have much to do with me. I’ve been thrown away into boarding schools and left to myself while they would gallivant around the country. I’m sorry that my lack of sadness seems to upset you.”

  The last bit of her statement caught my attention. Not only had Nicola had difficulties recognizing her own emotions, but also recognizing emotions in others.

  “You understood that I was upset by your lack of response?”

  “Well, I have been coming to see you and Senior Mr. Gunn for the last nine years. I have learnt your facial expressions and have caught on to what seems to upset or frustrate you. I just don’t feel anything.”