Trigger Warning--There is brief description of BDSM acts and description of a sadist assault. Anyone with assault or sexual assault triggers, please be aware. Anyone with concern over the content, please message me privately, thanks.
Okay...it's almost time to hear what Ashlynn's tale.
Song: Don't GIve Up On Me by Andy Grammar...because, it's so Leed, in the ways he thinks about Ashlynn...
Leed
The kiss I gave Ash in the hall did the trick. It put me in the moment with her and Ollie. It almost gave me almost enough presence to push Mac's startling revelation.
Almost.
Because if Mac thinks she knows who the psycho fucker is, it's likely that I'm acquainted with him, too.
But I tell myself...time and place. Mac is right, nothing bad it going to happen to Ashlynn while she's surrounded by her tribe in the Heartley hideaway. So I'll hear what she has to say about her experience tonight, and I'll file it all in my memory, and cross-reference with everything Mac has to tell me, and then I'll call Riley and see where we are with engaging a private investigator.
Right now, I'm with Ash and Ollie, and we haven't gotten to spend a lot of time like that, so I try to return to the moment with them.
Ash breezes into the suite and holds the door open for me with one hand while I manhandle the suitcase and stroller. She's biting her lips hard as the wheels twist and lock on the stroller and I end up picking up the damn thing and tossing it into the living area with a bitter, "Fuck German engineering!"
"Okay," she says tolerantly.
I'm not finished. "Do you know that stroller cost three thousand dollars and was custom built to Tam's height? And it doesn't work any damn better than one that cost a couple hundred bucks from Target, I bet!"
"Your daddy is so funny," she whispers to Ollie, as she rights the stroller and paces it around it, inspecting it.
"Feel free to kick it," I encourage her and she shakes her head and smiles at me. She pushes it herself, maneuvering it forward and back and jiggling it in the way that always seems to cause it to lock up on me. It operates smoothly for her, because she has the magic touch, I suppose. After a few moments of playing with it she presses her foot down on a bar, squeezes a safety trigger and jerks on the push bar, causing it to extend upwards. All while holding Ollie to her chest.
"Try it now." She waves at it like a game show hostess.
"I'm sure it's a piece of shit in any mode..." I insist, but actually I didn't know the push bar extended. Now,to my surprise, the wheels don't swivel and lock up now, no matter how I turn it. I careen it around the living room. "What the hell? How did you fix it?"
"I figured for that much money, it's not just made to one parent's measurements. You and Ben are about the same height, so I'm sure the extension is made for you. When the bar was too short for you, you were probably bearing your weight down on it differently than Tam would and causing the wheels to pivot. German engineering is about precision, right?"
"Yeah, I guess." I smile at her. "You're really smart, Ash."
She blushes and drags her suitcase to the bedroom, grabbing the makeup mirror from the bathroom and putting it on an ottoman by the window. When she pulls the blanket from the end of the bed, I help her fold it and she lays Ollie down on the pallet while she zips open her pullman.
I lie on the bed and prop my chin on crossed forearms, fascinated at the way she plays with him while she puts on her makeup. She pulls a big purple puffy bath sponge from her makeup bag and pretends to eat his tummy with it, while she brushes on some mineral powder. In thirty seconds, she has him laughing. When he quiets and is focused on her, she starts naming the colors of all her toiletries and sponges, letting him grasp at them. She takes a clean giant brushâthe kind for powderâand brushes it softly down his face from his forehead to his chin and he coos at the soft sensation. When she puts on her lipgloss, she gets close to him and smacks her lips, and he mimics her. While she concentrates on putting on her mascara, Ollie, now as addicted to her attention as I am, squeals for her, and she lays a hand on his tummy and talks to him softly, still stroking her lashes with the wand.
When she switches to the other eye, she sees me staring at her.
"Are you going to take a shower?" she smiles.
"Yeah," I roll off the bed and crawl over to them. "You are still feeling okay, right?"
She nods. "Tam probably told you not to leave him alone with me, right? Is that how the blow-up started?"
"Something like that," I murmur. "And it's not that I don't trust your judgment or your childcare skills because you are amazing with him, but you scared the shit out of me when you blacked out last night. You collapsed mid-stride. You almost hit your head again, you know. I caught you."
"Yeah, I shouldn't have been walking around. I can tell when I'm going to have a seizure, you know" she says softly. "I feel nauseous, and anxious for about a minute, then it feels like tiny hooks digging into my brain, and then I...am waking up. When I told you I was fine and that I could walk, I wasn't. I should have stayed in bed, or let you carry me. I was just...embarrassed and didn't want to seem...weak. But the point is...I do have a minute or so advance warning. Enough to sit down. Or put Ollie down safely. I wouldn't feel comfortable driving with him right now, but otherwise I feel like it's not a problem. Plus I haven't had a seizure in nine months before last night, so I'm really hoping it was an isolated thing. But of course, it's not my call. It's yours and Tam's. And Ben's I guess."
"It's my call right now, because I'm the parent in charge. And I know you wouldn't put Ollie at risk, and now that you've explained how your seizures come on...I'm going to take a shower. I know you've got him."
I stand in the hot water, soaping, humming, thinking...weird thoughts.
Ash is a natural mother. Different than Tam. Tam is calm, competent and caring, but Ash...she's sweeter, way more playful with Ollie, and almost...more natural with him. She's definitely a woman that loves kids and seems happy when she's teaching and caring for them.
But, I know she said motherhood might not be in the cards for her, and to be honest that's another way we fit. I would never have risked passing on a serious medical condition like diabetes to a kid. Ollie wasn't planned. but I think about it a lot, how he may have to deal with it like I do. It's not a looming death sentence or anything, but it's not the greatest outlook, either.
My dad has the same condition as me, and like me, he has led the party life. At fifty-four his kidneys are all but shot. He's probably going to need dialysis soon or maybe even a kidney transplant within a few years. Which sucks for him, and...gives me a lot to think about.
Sometimes it amazes me off that my parents were so cavalier about having kids, knowing that my dad and his sister and my grandfather were diabetics, but medical science didn't understand the cause of my kind of diabetes twenty-seven years ago, and my parents had no idea that the odds of passing on the disease to their offspring were fifty-fifty. At least Mac won the genetic lottery and doesn't have the mutated gene. It's a dominant mutation, so if you have the mutated version, you develop diabetes, and if you don't, you have the normal gene and you can't pass on the disease. Mac is all clear and there's no worry about her baby, or future babies.
Me? I can't see my way clear to having more kids intentionally. I wonder if Ashlynn, as she gets more time healthy and sober and gets a little older, will see things differently and want kids. Seeing her with Ollie, I get the feeling, it's highly possible.
That's a future problem, that's what that is.
Shit, Lawson...what the hell is wrong with you? You're a fucking Buddhist. Why so much trouble with staying in the present all of the sudden? The past and future don't exist, remember? All you have is the moment.
I finger the sandalwood bracelet on my hand and repeat "Be.Here.Now." Twenty-seven times. Ravi would tell me to do the full 108 repetitions but I'm not great with rules and I figure if I'm feeling centered from one time round the bracelet mala, then why not Be.Here.Now with Ash and Ollie and not stay stuck in the shower for another five minutes, right?
Ashlynn is dressed in skinny jeans, a white v neck tee and a sunny pink, yellow and grey-striped duster, looking cute as fuck as always when I walk back into the bedroom naked, toweling my hair.
"Don't know how I'm going to get used to that," she says mildly, her pinks cheek as she glances at me and goes back to changing Ollie's diaper.
I look down at my junk, pretending to assess. "Don't worry baby, it will fit. I promise. Never once have I gotten stuck."
She throws the puff at me. "I meant, how comfortable you are in your skin."
I don't answer. It bothers me to think she's so uncomfortable in hers.
ââââââââââââ
The drive out to Madam's is nice. Ashlynn puts that old Southern Rock on the music app and Ollie seems to like it. When we pull up in front of Mac and Adam's impressive "house"âmountain lodge is more of an accurate descriptionâAshlynn's face lights.
"Oh wow. It's gorgeous, isn't it?"
I grin between her and the light brick, dark wood, copper accents and contemporary styling. "This is your kind of house? I thought boho was more your style."
"Boho is more of a personal style. But this place...it's timeless. It's brand new, but it feels like it's been here forever, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," I agree, realizing that's exactly what it feels like. Tyler did a great job integrating it into the natural environment.
"That's what I like about it."
Ben is standing on the porch, messing with his phone and calling out directions to a technician on the roof, who is adjusting a security camera. Before I can get over the threshold, I am relieved of Ollie by an enthusiastic cluster of Heartley women, and Ashlynn is subsequently engulfed in their baby hysterics.
"Leed, he looks just like you!" a very pregnant Janie exclaims from somewhere in the crowd.
"Yeah, he's pretty fluked, isn't he?" I shoot back.
"Oh hush!" she yells back but she sounds like she's laughing. The pack of Heartley pirannha hustle my woman and kid away to Madam Mansion depths as yet unknown to me.
"Hey man, whatchya doing?" I say to Ben, thinking he'll show me some cool spy-tech shit.
"Oh, just brushing up my resume," he says casually.
"What the fuck?" I laugh. "Why?"
"Might need a new job, if I have to kick your ass," he continues, completely even. "My wife has been crying, and I have a feeling I should ask you about it, because in the two years I have known her, every time I have seen her cry has had something to do with you."
"Fuuuuuuck," I groan. "I'll fix it."
He looks up at me, and I can see he's not really angry, just frustrated. Which I can relate to. "Or maybe...don't, okay?"
The air in Nashville is cold in February, and my breath is cloudy as I exhale slowly. "I feel ya, man. I swear to fuck, I do. But you're asking me to compromise my relationship with my kid's mother."
"No, I'm asking you to help me get my marriage on track. It's been a year since she said she loved me, since she made her choice. She wears my ring, she warms my bed, we're amazing together, but then she sees you with Ash and she's not happy. I don't know what to think about that."
I lean against the porch railing. What can I say to this manâmy friend? I open my mouth and pray that the right words will come.
"I know, man. You've been more than decent about the whole thing. That's how I know how much you love her. I am so fucking glad about that, Ben, because she deserves love. Real love. Tam and I...we never had that. I don't know if she's told you how we were...but it wasn't like that. It never went...deep. We could never get in sync like that. There was a time maybe I wanted more, but really I was just young and dumb and possessive and she was smart enough to know we weren't ready for something serious. Then maybe she wanted more, but by then, what we had, it didn't fit me anymore. I grew up and she still always treated me like a kid or like...her pet. Not her partner. Not like you. She's got ten times the respect for you than she has ever had for me. I really fucking believe that, man. I don't know why me being with Ashlynn bothers her so much, but I think it's just...hard for her to see me changing. Believe me, it was fucking hard for me when she dumped my ass without explanation last year. You saw how long it took me to come around. It was tense, remember? It took some time to let go. Now, it's just...her season to do that."
Ben stares at me a long time, and I have no idea what he's thinking. Not one of us rock stars has an iron curtain expression like Ben Sullivan. Finally he says. "You're first class, Lawson. 'Preciate you telling me that. I'd appreciate it even more if you would...stick by whatever position you took today that upset her. Sometimes you have to be a little cruel to be kind, you know what I'm saying?"
I sigh and slap in on the back. "I already was, man. I already was. It will be a miracle if she doesn't slap me with a custody suit."
He chuckles. "Don't worry about that. If you've got my back, I've got yours. Nobody is going there. I'll make sure Tam is thinking right on that."
"Thanks."
_____________________
Adam and Mac's studio is legit professional. Trace is jealous as fuck, and it even makes me committed to upgrading my music room. Mac doesn't let us play around for long, though. Before I know it, she's coaxing us to work with bourbon and a clipboard. I wave off the drink and shrug off Adam's continued ribbing about not dating, but as he takes Trace and I to the garage for tools and to show us the pallets of tv's,wall mounts and speakers, I tell him, "You can lay off. I surrender. I admit I'm officially as pussy whipped as you two fuckers. I'm in love, okay? Ashlynn is all I can see. You fucking happy now?"
Adam says, "Yep," at the same time Trace says "Not really."
I tag Trace hard in the shoulder and he grins.
Adam laughs. "So do I need to notify Janie that the bedroom chart has changed?"
Trace makes a face of mock shock. "Preacher, are you going to allow fornication in your house?"
"Fuck all you want. Just don't smoke weed, okay? MJ can smell green all the way across the cove, and I don't want to hear about it come Sunday."
Trace and I snicker and then we quiet, because we are leaving space for the person that should be saying something to get the biggest laugh.
"Anybody heard from Riley this morning?" Adam asks.
Trace shakes his head and picks up a tv. "Fuck this sad shit. Bodie is not lost to us, okay? He's just going through some shit. So let's quit acting like he's dead or something. The sooner we install these gazillion fucking bedroom televisions, the sooner we can kick back in Adam's hot tub, with a couple of sweet little Georgia Peaches. "
"Word," I say, picking up a tv mount box and gunning the drill for emphasis.
Unbelievably, Mac and Janie keep us all to schedule and the house is completely outfitted for living by dinner. Of course, Mac and Adam also have truckloads of professional movers, a crew of cleaners and a bunch of professional specialty installers for the serious electronics--the media room, office and master bedroom media area.
Still, we bust ass all day.
Well, we have a little fun, too.
Trace and I aren't stupid. We coordinate our TV installs with wherever Kat and Ash are making beds and putting up drapes, so we can tease them. Trace dares Kat to carve their initials on the bedpost in the room they are sharing and she does...but she makes us pull the bed away from the wall so she can deface the bed on the backside where no one can see. In one room, I flop down on a new mattress and refused to get up unless Ash flashes me some nipple. I know she won't, but I'm curious to see how she will handle my teasing. She and Kat just make the bed up over me, turn out the lights and leave. Trace and I have to remake that one.
By seven pm, Mac's mother-in-law, nutritionist, and two housekeepers are bringing in huge trays of food cooked up at the Homestead. Brett is burning sage and warding all the doors of the Madam Mansion, and then we are gathering in the huge living area for the Reverend's traditional house blessing prayer.
Dinner makes me want to move down South again, tooâlow country boilâa mix of sausage, seafood and corn. Plus a fluke-ton of fresh and tasty salads and sides, and, because MJ was involved in this meal prep, an absolutely sinful amount of biscuits, cornbread, sugary pies, cakes, and cookies.
Wynter discreetly points out a couple of no sugar added desserts she madeâa blueberry crisp made with almond flour, and a natural peanut butter pie with a nut crust, garnished with high quality dark chocolate and fresh cream. I thank her for the heads up. I'm sure Mac only told her I'm a health nut and I eat clean. That's my standard line. Mac has gestational diabetes right now, so the desserts are for her as well.
After dinner, all the Heartleys except for Brett and Ty make a gradual exit, and Mac, though she looks tired, insists we break in the hot tub, which is the size of a small pool and can easily seat twenty. Tam has been stuck in Madam's closet all day, and avoided me at dinner, so this is the first time I'm in proximity with her since she ran off crying this morning. Not surprisingly, she chooses the opposite end from where I sit.
Ash arrives barefoot, wrapped in a beige kaftan that is fringed to the floor, and when she takes it off, she's in a modest black one piece, though the deep v is cut nearly to her waist. I stand, giving her a hand down into the tub . She sits in front of me on the deep seat, and I offer her a sip of my sparkling water, but before we can relax, I'm up again to help Mac step down into the hot tub beside us.
"Oh god, it feels good to be weightless," she says, floating out into the center. "I almost feel human again."
"You have ten minutes to feel human. Then you have to sit in timeout and bear the weight of our baby elephant so you two don't overheat, Little Mama," Adam says as he sets a timer on his phone and takes two large steps down to meet her, kissing her lightly and drawing her back to sit with him.
"Nazi fucker," she pouts, scraping her fingers through his beard.
"Whiny brat," he returns tolerantly, and I can see his hands rubbing the small of her back.
Ashlynn and I exchange a smile. I think she's as happy for my sister as I am.
Then Trace stalks out on the deck carrying Kat bridal style, strides down to the lower level and throws her in the poolâwhich is nearly full but not yet heated. Spluttering curses and screeches and laughter interrupt our hot tub bliss.
"Kids, kidsâthis is adult swim," I yell, but Kat is already climbing out and running to the hot tub. She sits beside Tam, who puts an arm around her and good-naturedly scolds Trace, who good-naturedly accepts it as he brings Kat diet soda. I guess everyone is planning to make it an early night.
It's good to hang with the crew. I don't like the way things are between me and Tam, but as we all make our way out of the hot tub, she walks over slowly and says, "Don't worry about Ollie tonight. Page is with him right now, but he's in the portable crib in our room."
"If you want, I can be on stand-by," I offer.
She just shakes her head. "No, if he wakes up I'll just bring him to bed with us."
"Oh. Are you guys doing that now?" That's new, since I left.
"Only if he wakes up. Now that you're not there with a bottle of pumped milk, it's just easier for me to feed him in bed." She says. She's hardly looking at me, and her tone is dull. I think she's trying to keep from crying.
"That's nice, Tam. That seems...comforting for him and easier for you."
She just nods. "Well. Goodnight." Her eyes flit to Ashlynn and she nods, I guess to include her in the 'goodnight.'
"Goodnight." I say and Ash echoes.
She walks away without a smile, but she gives Ben one as he reaches for her hand and kisses her temple.
Ash's steps seem to slow as we head up to the bedrooms. I think we are both dreading what comes next. Outside her door, she pats my chest. "Can you give me...a few minutes to change?"
"Sure." I kiss her forehead and open the door for her. Ten minutes later I'm back. There's no one in the hall.
I lean my head against the door. Maybe being around the Heartley's inspires me, but I send up a quick prayer to the Universe.
Please, help her tell it. Help me hear it. Let me be enough.
I knock. She calls me in. She's wearing enough fleece clothes for an Arctic Expedition.
"It's freezing in here," she shivers and pulls on fuzzy socks with goats on them.
It's not freezing, but I don't protest.
I sit in the overstuffed chair in the corner, not sure of the protocol for something like this. What's the easiest way for a traumatized girl to talk about an abusive BDSM relationship? Would it be easier for us to face each other across the room like this, like it's a therapy session for her? Or maybe spoon in bed, with the lights off?
I don't know, so I wait.
She paces in front of me for a minute, and then she does something that sort of freaks me out. She sits at my feet, on her knees, her head bowed.
"You know this?" she says.
I hesitate. "Is that the way you were supposed to wait on his instructions?"
She nods. "I spent most of my time with him on my kneesâsometimes hours every day. I spent much more time like this than I ever did in bondage, in pleasure, in pain at his hand or having sex with him. He would make me sit like this and wait with a headache until the allotted time for my Oxy. If I cried, if I trembled, if I got off my knees, if I collapsed, then the punishment would come. Pleasure...such as it was...only ever came if I could outwait my prescribed time, and it was not pleasure like you would imagine. What I told you beforeâthat I have never been able to orgasm with a man, that was true. The pleasure he gave me...it was sensory pleasureâice, whips, candle wax, knife playâall things that gave me a relief from the numbness of my drug haze âbut it never went to completion. At first, when he followed his own rules, he never brought me to orgasm because he said only good girls deserved orgasm. And I was never good enough. I was never clean.
"See, that was the whole point. I became his submissive because he convinced me that my headaches were pschosematic--an excuse for my drug addiction. He made me believe that proper discipline could "cure" me."
She looks up at me. "He never takes drugs. He hates drugs. When I first met him, he told me that I was too smart, too beautiful to let drugs ruin me. I thought in the beginning, his motives were pure. I didn't realize for a long time...that what he did to me, was not about me at all. His mother had been a drug addict, a prostitute. She'd abandoned him at some point, but he had been old enough to remember her. He kept a picture of her. She was pretty. She had hair just the color of mine."
I swallow. "Christ."
She nods, bowing her head again.
"And just like she failed him, I was his failureâanother woman he couldn't reshape with his will. He was an angry, dangerous man, but he hid it behind a cool calculating demeanor. He never raised his voice to me in anger. Never hit me unless I failed to meet his expectations, and then he only delivered the "discipline" I deserved, sometimes brutal, but always measured. At least in his mind. In reality, he wasn't helping me. He was setting me up to fail at every task he commanded, so that he could punish me. By the end, he was denying me my pain medication, putting me in bondage, giving me more painful stimulation than pleasurable, and commanding me to come, so that when I couldn't, he could truly whip me for disobeying.
"When it was too much, and I would safeword, he would throw me out of his house. He would have a flunkie follow me around where ever I went, and intervene if I tried to buy pills from anyone, anywhere. If I went home to Trace's house...he would send me videos he had taken of me in various acts of submissionâdegrading actsâand he would threaten to send them to Trace if I didn't come 'home.' So you see, I was not really a submissive because the one power a submissive is supposed to have is to be able to break the submission at any time. I had no power. No power to safeword, no power to leave the contract. I was not his submissive, I was his hostage. And like most hostages, I came to depend on my torturer.
"I'm not proud of it, but I would go crawling back each time he kicked me out. He would welcome me back, as long as I submitted to whatever had caused me to safeword before. He would let me have my pain medication again. Things would be...tolerable...for a week, maybe two. Then they would all fall apart again. It went on for months. Finally, I got the courage not just to leave him, but leave LA. I thought he would send Trace the videos like he swore he would, but he didn't. He searched for me. That's why I never wanted to used Trace's credit cards, or come home. It wasn't because I was angry with Trace, I was terrified of the consequences of what he would do, if he found me, because I had been gone so long."
She stops speaking, and just sits on her knees staring into the dimness for awhile.
"It's okay, if that's all you can tell me right now," I say gently.
"That's the easy part to tell. The middle part. But I want to tell the harder parts--the beginning and the end. It started and ended with this."
Ashlynn rises from her knees, pulls off her fleece throw, and her long sleeve t-shirt underneath. She pushes up the band of her bra and turns her left side to me. In the lamplight, the letters W-H-O-R-E shineâsilvery pink and ragged--sideways down her ribs.
I don't feel the things I felt when I saw the pictures of the scars. I don't feel my feelings at all. I only feel her shame, because her head is bowed and she won't look at me. I takes everything in me not to reach for her, but I know now is not the time. She's not finished.
Without looking at her scar, she traces the outer slants of the letter W with two fingers. "What he did to meâit didn't start out to be this word. At first, it was just these two marks.
"He had approached me a few times in clubs in the past, and I knew who he was, but it was when you guys were in Portland, when he began to take me home to his playroom. The first few times it was very...erotic. Light bondage with sensual play, because he wanted to show me that there was pleasure beyond the oblivion of pills. I liked it, at first. It was...exciting. It felt good, even though he never brought me close to climax, only teased me and took his pleasure. Even the night he started the knife play, I liked it. He used a nail file, and he made the two outer marks, but they were just scratches. The next few times we played, he retraced them. It felt good, just like it would feel good for you if I scratched my nails down your back. He was grooming me to be a sub, and he was honest about thatâexposing me to the kinds of play he liked.
"Those first few weeks, he did discipline my pill habits. And I was high on the euphoria of the lifestyleâmy headaches weren't as bad. I actually did feel better, and I started to believe he was rightâthat it was my nature to be a submissive, to be controlled, even to the point of giving him control of my pain. I thought maybe he was rightâmaybe my headaches were psychosomatic and he could cure them by keeping me on a regimen of discipline.
"The night he put my contract before me to sign, I struck off knife play as an acceptable form of play, because I was scared for him to cut deeper than the scratches he had already made. He negotiated for knife play that only penetrated the top layers of skin, not enough to draw blood, and I...agreed.
"The very first night, I should have known what he was...because he broke the contract immediately. He put me in full bondage and made these two cuts, deep enough to draw blood, and to scar. I cried but I didn't safeword...probably because he had allowed me to have a pill before he began. My tears displeased him and he spanked me harder than he ever had before, and it went on so long, I...safeworded from fear. He let my restraints loose and I dropped to the floor. No aftercare. He locked the playroom but he gave me no instructions."
"Later, he came back. He told me he had found me lacking in my first night as his submissive because knife play was a required form pleasure for him and I didn't enjoy it. He told me he was suspending the contract until such a time as I improved my preferences to match his. He told me not to come back until I figured out a way to please him. I left confused, but relieved. I knew I had made a mistake, thinking that the lifestyle was for me. I told myself it was a failed experiment. At least until I realized his flunkie was going to prevent me from getting drugs anywhere and everywhere. No one I approached would sell me a single pill because he had a man following me around, harassing everyone I talked to.
"After a few days, I was in terrible pain from headaches. Riley was on my case to go to therapy, a doctor, a rehab, anything, and I almost did...but that day, he sent his flunkie to the house with a manila envelope. It had two Oxy, a medical grade scalpel, and a note. It said, Prove you are mine and I will give you control over your pain.
"I knew without him telling me what he wanted me to do. But I didn't do it. Not at first. I just took the pills. The next day I was hurting again and his flunkie shut down the two exchanges IÂ tried to make. It took two more days before I got truly desperate. I made this cut," she traces the left inner slant of the W. "I sent him a picture and asked for more pills. He sent two more pills. I took them and made this cut." She traces the last stroke that completed the W. "I remember being really really agitated, afterwards. I'm pretty sure I trashed my bathroom, and my closet. Riley and Tamara came in and saw the mess and knew I was high, I think. It's hazy...I just remember feeling so ashamed and so grateful that I had a place to go to get away from their judgment. Because now, he was pleased. So pleased. I had submitted. I was his and I had marked myself for him to prove it."
I get it. W is his initial. That sick, twisted motherfucker made her mark herself with his fucking initial.
I reach out to her, only thinking to give her comfort, to place an accepting hand over her scars, but she jumps back out of my reach, wrapping her arms around her, looking at me in surprise and something like...disapproval.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you," I say slowly. "I can't touch you, there?"
She backs away and grabs the throw from the end of the bed, wrapping in it. "Not...not now, okay? Not while he's in my head."
"Okay." I move slowly, picking up her shirt and her fleece, handing them to her. "You showed it to me. I see it. I'm so fucking sorry for it, but it's like I told you, it doesn't matter to me. The next time you are naked with me, I won't be seeing that scar, okay? I'll just be seeing you."
Her expression softens slightly and she nods. She accepts her shirt and quickly puts it on, and the fleece as well. I sit back down in the chair. "How did you get the rest of the cuts?"
She lays across the bottom of the bed, puts her head on her hands. She speaks low, and I have to lean forward in my chair to hear her.
"In the four months I knelt for him every day, he never cut me again. Which was strange, since he had made such a big deal about knife play...but...he's a vain man, and his vanity extended to me. He had a lot of friends in the lifestyle and he wanted me to look my best, sitting naked at his feet, because I was a reflection on him. I had to keep up my appearance--tan, wax, all that--and I was required to use makeup to cover my two cigarette burn marks that I already had. He was proud of the W after it healed, but he never left me with random marks he considered ugly, although a black and blue ass, or striped legs were quite attractive to him and his friends."
"Within weeks, the sensual play was fading. More and more, it was only denial and discipline. The first time he tried to give me away to another Dom for a night I safeworded again. He threw me out and blocked me from getting drugs anywhere but through him. I didn't come back easily, because I knew what I would have to do."
Fuck. I hiss the word on the inside, but outside I am silent. Accepting.
"I thought he would discipline me severely in front of the other Dom before he made me serve him, but he didn't. He was almost polite about it. It was all very civil. It was my choice. I could leave and hurt. Or I could have the pills he dramatically displayed on a silver pedestal. All I had to do...was submit to his associate."
"It was more and more of the same, the depraved cycle things I was required to submit to. He used me to collect favors from his friends, one at a time. He always supervised, and they were...somewhat moderate in their treatment. Still, it's the nature of lifestyle to push a submissive's limits and I was...just not made for true sexual sadism. The cycle of me safewording and getting kicked out and coming back, desperately in need of a fix became the norm. But the last time I left him, I...it was just something I couldn't do. Would never do. There are limits, breaking points even for a junkie."
I really don't want to know, but somehow I feel like she wants me to ask. Like she needs to know I am brave enough to accept how bad things got. "What couldn't you do, Ashlynn?"
"He was having a weekend gathering for business associates. All in the lifestyle. He told me I would serve as the entertainment. That I would be suspended in the foyer all weekend for ...everyone's pleasure. It was...a large party."
I grip the arms of the chair. I don't feel like I'm sitting at all. I feel like I'm standing in the middle of a fire. There is nothing but the burn. Somehow, I force myself to say, calmly. "He was trying to break you, baby. He knew you would safeword and never submit to something like that. He wanted to deprive you of pain medication indefinitely. He wanted you to hit rock bottom."
She sits up on the bed, surprised at the way I responded, I guess. She smiles at meâa little bleaklyâand nods. "You can see that, so easily, but I didn't see it at the time. I only knew that I wouldn't do that. That time when I safeworded, he predicted I would be dead within a month. It was a long time after that I realized, maybe he was trying to make me...take my own life with his mind games. Because he couldn't clear my headaches or my cravings with his control and his discipline, he felt like a failure. If he truly broke me and I OD'ed, killed myself, whatever, then I would be the ultimate failure. Not him. But it never occurred to me to do that."
"Because you are a survivor" I say softly.
She nods and continues. "Surprisingly, his flunkie, took pity on me for once. I guess he thought his boss had gone too far with his plans for me. He gave me some money and told me to get out of LA before he started looking for me. That started my cycle of running from place to place, and finding other...companions. None like him. No Dom's. No sociopaths. Just your typical drunks and druggies." Her voice is soft but the bitterness is still clear.
"I thought it was over. He never contacted me, never intervened with the other men I took up with, but I kept moving around. I never had trouble finding a new guy. I never stayed with any that was physically abusive after that. Most of them treated me tolerably decent, but there were no illusions of what I was. Sex on command was always a given, in exchange for my basic needs. Which included drugs. Some of them would ask me about the W, and I never lied about it. I told them an abusive ex had cut me and then made me finish it. Most of the time, it got me sympathy. Most of them weren't...rough, because they knew I had been abused. Even men that pay for it are not pure evil, you know. Mostly they are lonely, or have problems in their livesâlike addictionsâthat make finding a real relationship impossible."
She waits, so I say, "Yes, I can see that."
"I went to Seattle with this television producer I was with. I had no idea whose house, whose party it was. But he was there. Within half an hour...the producer was quietly ejected from the party. While I was looking for him, he approached me. He told me he wasn't pleased to see me still using pills and he regretted the way we had ended. He politely asked me to return to my contract. I declined. He told me, I was foolish. I remember exactly what he said. 'As my submissive, you are a cherished possession of great value. To these other men, you are nothing but a whore.'"
"Possession maybe, but cherished? Of value to him? I laughed in his face, because that was the biggest lie he ever told me. 'I would rather be any man's whore than ever kneel for you again,' I told him. He knew I meant it. I know he did, because I saw his rage...boil over in his eyes.That scared me. He was always in control, never rage filled. He drug me by the wrist to a bedroom. I cried out but everyone at this party...knew him for what he was and didn't stop him. He jerked my dress over my head and held me down while he loosed his tie. I tried to get away but a couple of furious slaps took most of the fight out of me and he was able to tie my hands to the metal headboard. He sat on me. The look in his eyes when he pulled the knife from his pocketâhe was truly mad with lust. Not for sex. For blood."
"He cut slow and deep and it hurt. I cried and begged and used every safeword I could remember but he didn't stop. When he finished he smeared my blood all over my face. I thought for a minute that he might rape me, but he wiped his sweat with his bloody hand, and the taste of my blood, it brought him back to himself somehow. Blood play was not part of his preferences, I don't know whyâprobably something in his past. But as soon as he tasted my blood, his expression changed. He dropped the knife and crawled off me. He sat down against the wall, looking at his hands. I lay there a long time, bound whimpering. Scared of what he might do next."
"His hands were shaking when he untied me. He didn't have any more arrogant high words. He just said. 'Go. I don't ever want to see you again.'"
"I went. I left the house with my dress in my hands and my side bleeding. There was a pool house that was unlocked. I got cleaned up, staunched the bleeding with towels and walked down the long driveway. A stranger helped me outâgave me a ride, a meal, a plane ticket. The stranger, ironically, turned out to be Dev Blue, and the plane ticket I booked for Atlanta, where I arrived the day after Soundcrush played the Fox and Trace reunited with Kat. When I got there...I was in the worst shape I had ever been. Detoxing. Angry. Bitter."
"Victimized. Traumatized," I correct her gently.
She looks down at her hands. "I was...horrible to Trace, because I could not take his kindness. I need to keep my edge, my anger, to keep from coming completely undone. I threatened to tell Kat about our marriage, and extorted thirty thousand dollars from him, so I could disappear. I didn't get very far before I nearly killed myself, driving high. You know the rest."
We sit in silence a long time. Finally she adds, almost off-handedly, "It's funny how the paintings aren't accurate, but yet they are still true. How they make it seem like the word was cut into me gradually, over time. It wasn't...physically, but he was cutting me all along, making me into a whore day by day."
That's when I kneel at her feet and take her hands in mine, kissing them.
"I need you to hear me, Ashlynn. Do you know why the word whore is such a slur? It's because people hate what they fear. No one wants to feel that far down. But the truth is, I am the same as you were. I trade on my looks, my sex appeal. Who's to say how much of Soundcrush's success is because of the music, or because women want to bed me and men want to be me? But no one calls me a whore, because I don't lose my power from trading on this," I put her hands on my face. "Or this," I push them down my throat, "Or this," I slide them to my abs. "But you are different than all those people that want me for those things. You see more than my body. You feel this," I put her hands on my heart. "And I feel you, baby." I put my hand on her heart. "Last night, I could swear to you, our hearts were beating as one, and I could feel you so deep, and I know for sureâ I don't care about where you've been, or what you've done. I'm not afraid of your past, your brain trauma, your addiction.
"I care about how you rose up. How you've fought for yourself, how resilient your mind and your spirit is, how beautiful and gracious and generous your heart is. Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you believe it? Because if you do, we can put this to rest between us and we can just...love each other. But if you don't believe how I love you, or don't believe you are worthy of my love, I'll work to convince you, and this might be the first of many talks like this. I just need for you to tell me which way to go, baby."
Ashlynn closes her eyes and curls her fingers into my hair. When she opens them, they are gentle. And dry.
"Forward, Leed. We can go forward. You are so unbelievably, incredibly understanding and I can't believe I'm this lucky in you. You make me feel...worthy of love, and I don't want to waste any more time hung up on unworthy things. Not past actions. Not even...scars or labels. With you, I think...I think I can let go of that, too."
"That's so fucking good to hear, Sunshine. Then there is only one more thing." I pull her down off the bed to meet me on my knees, cupping her jaw. "Swear to me, you will let me protect you from him. If this man invades our present, you tell me. I don't care who he is, what videos he has, what power you think he wields...you tell me. If I am your man, then I am your shelter and I am your vengeance, you understand?"
She nods slowly, her gaze focused somewhere around my lips. I wrap my hands through her hair and bring her eyes in line with me. "Swear," I growl.
Her pupils dilate, bleeding lust, either at my harsh tone or at the way my fingers are twined in her hair, pulling her attention to me. She licks her lips, but her gaze is locked with mine. "I swear."
I release the breath I was holding and put my forehead to hers, my hands sliding down to embrace her gently. "Thank you."
She folds her head onto my shoulder. We stay like that a long timeâhugging on our knees. Regretfully, I separate from her. "Want me to go, or stay?"
She turns her face to my ear. "Will you stay, but not get in bed yet? I want to meditate and clear my mind. Then we canâ"
"Sleep," I tell her firmly. "We can sleep. I'm calling off sexy stuff until our date on Friday. I want it to be memorable."
"Well, I wasn't exactly thinking we should start something tonight, but...you want to wait another whole week?" she asks.
"Sunshine, I've been waiting five years for you. One more week is cake."
Her lips brush my ear and her whisper is moist as she says. "I know what you are doing. Putting space between this and our real beginning. You are the world's sweetest man, do you know that?"
"Mmmmm..." I rumble. "Don't tell anybody, okay? I have a rock star rep to uphold."
Ashlynn only squeezes me hard in responses, then rises to retrieves her prayer beads from her bag. I arrange myself in the chair again, intending to join Ashlynn in bed when she welcomes me. I meditate, too, because Ashlynn is not the only one working on the mental discipline to release her past. I will respect her need to fade him by not naming him. I will trust in her belief that he's over wanting to dominate her. But I need to know who he is. Because if he ever does contact her, I need contingencies already in place so that I can act swiftly to protect her.
So I better start working on my discipline, if have any hope of sitting in stillness once I know who the fucker is.
After a while, I feel more centered, and I open my eyes and watch Ashlynn, sitting cross-legged on the bed with her eyes closed.
I marvel at her. Not many people could survive what she's been through with their sunny disposition, their light, their ability to love intact. She's a miracle, a rarity, and I'm so honored that she's choosing to spend her energy with me. I decide right then and there, that all the drama and struggles we've been wading through? It ends tonight.
The girl deserves some good times.
I must have fallen asleep in the chair planning some fun for her because the next thing I know, Adam is shaking my shoulder.
He has the exact kind of look that people have at the very top of a scary rollercoaster.
Only one reason he would wake me in the middle of the night with a look like that.
"Shit! Really?" I whisper.
He nods. "Now. Hurry." He strides out.
He shuts the door a little too firmly and Ashlynn sits up abruptly. "Wha?"
"Mac's having the baby." I whisper, already in motion toward the door. "You sleep. I'll call you with an update."
Ashlynn snorts softly in the dark. "Right."
I hear the soft sound of her slipping into her Uggs.
"Baby..." I warn. "No. It's 4am. You need your sleep."
"Leed, don't okay? This is Mac we are talking about. Your sister. Birthing your niece. You want to be there for her and I want to be there for you. I can sleep in the morning."
I run a hand through my hair. It's not exactly like I can forbid her from coming with me. And I did say, I wasn't going to spend our time treating her like an invalid, didn't I?
"Fine, but if you feel a seizure coming on, you better sit your pretty little ass down, because so help me god, if you fall out on me I will find an unoccupied room and tie you down to the hospital bed so I don't have to worry about you smashing your melon."
She comes close, and by the light of my phone I see her narrowing her eyes at me. She reminds me a little of Kat with her expression--ballsy and wicked. "Tie me down, huh? You think that's funny?"
"Too soon?" I blink innocently.
She laughs even though she's trying not to. "Are you going to stand around here and fantasize or are you going to go meet your niece?"
So, now we know? Thoughts? On Ashlynn's experience? On her composure to tell this tale?
On Leed's response?
Do you think it will be as they hope--that they can just put her experience behind them? IF not, do you think it will crop up in their intimate relationship or will it be in more...external ways?