Knowing the Ropes (31 page)

Natalie glanced around wildly, trying to look for an out. Thought she saw one in Nick. “Sir,” she said in her most ingratiating voice, “I don’t know what she’s talking about. Tell her you released me.”

“Because you begged me to.” Nick’s voice was cold, and not in the detached-but-sexy mad-scientist sort of way it sometimes got in the bedroom, but in a way that said, if you were paying attention, that he was done.

Natalie, apparently, wasn’t paying attention. With three steps, she crossed the living room, put her hand on Nick’s arm and looked up at him, eyes as wide and pleading as a puppy at the pound. Even Selene, who wanted at this point to hit the woman repeatedly with a clue-by-eight because a clue-by-four wouldn’t be big enough to make an impression, had to admit that if she were more into women and even a little bit toppy, that little-girl-lost expression might have melted her heart.

She wasn’t, though, so it didn’t. “I think you need to talk to me, Nat. Not to him.”

“I…uh… Oh, hell. Selene. You’ve done so much to help me. Why would I have wanted to hurt…?” She sat down abruptly on the nearest piece of furniture, which happened to be Nick’s favorite green comfy chair. She’d never sat in it, as far as Selene knew, in the time she’d been living there, and she looked down at it as if it might burn her.

Nick put a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder when she tried to jump up again.

“That’s a good question,” Selene said. “Because apparently you did. Either that or you’re really dumb, and even though you play that game sometimes, I don’t buy it.”

The long, pained silence was finally broken with Natalie jumping up and darting for the door.

“Natalie,” Nick said, a warning growl. The instinct to obey him must have been strong in her still, because she caught herself short, hand on the doorknob, and waited, her skinny body trembling like a frightened fawn. Remembering the broken woman she’d first met, Selene pitied her. Maybe Natalie didn’t deserve her pity, but it would make her smaller somehow not to feel it when someone was so fragile both physically and emotionally.

“I like you, Selene,” she finally said. “That’s important to say, I think. When you first started asking me questions, I really did just want to help. You don’t seem like a slave to me, more someone who likes to get her freak on in the bedroom and be equal the rest of the time, but I don’t know what’s in your heart, and you wanted to learn. When I first knew him, it was something Nick wanted, to be a master, a really good one, to have a slave and love and cherish her. What he wanted didn’t work for me, but it might work for you, so at first I wanted to help because I still care for Nick.”

She glanced from Selene to Nick, her eyes wide and wild. She’d wrapped her arms around herself as if that would hold her together, but she was still shaking like she might fall apart. “But it’s been killing me seeing you guys so happy! The longer I’ve been here, the harder it’s gotten. I’m not sure anymore what or who I need, but I’m pretty sure it’s not romance, and you need to give your girl that, Nick. But it hurt. Seeing you two… It hurt in the worst way. And I realized neither of you were seeing how right you were for each other, and that just made it worse because you had the start of something great, and you didn’t even fucking appreciate it.”

“Oh, we did,” Nick said, a rueful smile on his handsome face. “We just didn’t have the sense to tell each other how much we appreciated it until it was almost too late.”

“So I started playing games. Not lying, exactly, but my truths, not yours—what works for me, but not what would probably work best for you guys. I fed you a few ideas that I knew would push Nick’s buttons, maybe provoke a fight. I thought maybe it would be a good thing in the long run, that either Selene would find her slave-self, or she wouldn’t, and you’d both know and could decide what to do from there.”

The strange thing was that Selene could see how Natalie, confused and miserable, trying to put her life back together and not sure how, could convince herself that this behavior made sense, that it was even serving Nick’s interests and helping Selene figure out what she wanted.

“And then I started talking to Craig, and he…”

“Wait just a damn minute,” Nick exclaimed. “Craig’s in on this too?”

“Don’t blame him,” Natalie said, her voice firmer than usual. “I guess he put some ideas in my head, talking about how he never saw how you two ended up together, how Selene wasn’t right for you, not enough of a slave at heart, not like me. I got worried about Nick. Then I got worried about me. Where would I go if you two kept going the way you were? What would I do? I’d gotten what I thought I needed and it was hell, so I’ve been questioning. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I left too soon, maybe I should have stayed with you and tried to learn to be loved. And that maybe if things didn’t work with you and Selene, I’d have another chance.”

“What made you think I was going to let her go?”

“You let me go.”

“Because it was what you wanted and needed. We weren’t working, and I wasn’t going to keep you against your will. You’ve never wanted all I had to offer. You wanted the whips, the leather, the control, not the man wielding them. Selene does.”

“Your loss, really,” Selene said, her voice sweet with malice. She found she could forgive Natalie’s games with her head a lot more readily than the damage she’d done Nick. Selene had been naïve enough to let Natalie manipulate matters—more fool her. Nick had loved and trusted Natalie once, though, and she’d hurt him. That, Selene couldn’t forgive.

“But Craig said that you’d be much better with someone else. That you really needed a playmate… someone more like him, really, who wasn’t in a position to commit and didn’t want to. I managed to convince myself that maybe it would be the best thing for everyone.” Natalie smiled weakly, one of those smiles that was more like a defense mechanism. It was clear from her eyes that she knew how badly wrong she’d been. “I don’t know what I was thinking except Craig said I was the only woman who’d made him think of leaving his wife and that’s kind of a brain-melting thing to hear, you know…”

A flash of understanding hit Selene, and with it, a flash of solidarity with Natalie. “That arrogant bastard! Natalie, that rat was playing you twice over. He wanted a chance at both of us. Not that he had one with me, but I think he was hoping if Nick and I broke up, he might. And if that didn’t work, or even if it did, since he’s not exactly the monogamous type, he’d have a crack at you.”

Another flash of insight. “Natalie, I know you’re lost right now, trying to figure out what to do next. But I know you have better judgment than to go from one bad situation to another, from Derrick to being someone’s guilty little secret.” Okay, Natalie was messed-up enough at this point that she didn’t have better judgment than that, but Selene was putting all her counseling classes to use. “You can do better than helping Craig Whittaker cheat on his wife. He’ll do it one way or the other, but let’s leave you out of the equation, shall we?”

Natalie looked back at her, stunned. “But he’s a master. He can…”

“Don’t you have to earn that title by being worth serving and respecting? He’s a cheater who was trying to figure out a way to two-time the person he was hoping to two-time his wife with. You don’t need someone like that. You’re too good for that, even if you don’t believe it. Nick believes better things of you, and so do I. I’m angry enough I want to choke you right now, but I still know you deserve better than that.”

Impulsively, she crossed over, gave Natalie a hug. The smaller woman was stiff in her arms, then yielded, bonelessly and fully, to the embrace.

Natalie began to cry.

“Derrick never tried to find me,” she finally said.

“Thank God,” was Nick’s dry response.

“I know. I’ve been here instead of at Mom’s because I figured you guys could handle it if he did turn up. But at the same time…he’d said I was his forever, that I couldn’t leave, that he’d always find me and bring me home. I’m glad he didn’t try, because it would have gotten ugly. But part of me still feels abandoned, and I know it doesn’t make sense because he really was crazy, and I’m so lonely and Nick didn’t need me either and… I’m sorry. I need…I need… I can’t believe I ever thought doing anything that might mess you up was a good idea. You guys have been so good to me, and it just doesn’t make sense that I did this.”

“Nat,” Selene said, as gently as she could, “you need therapy.”

Selene felt her stiffen before she pulled away. “Don’t want someone to cure me of being a slave.”

“Not that. There’s nothing wrong with that, once you get a few things straightened out, but you’re doing stuff that doesn’t make sense even to you. Maybe it’s something to do with losing your dad so young, maybe something chemical, maybe it’s just the after-effects of Derrick, but something’s wrong, and you need help to fix it.”

“When I find a master again…the right one this time…” She froze, her mouth opening and closing silently. She was wearing a boat-neck shirt, and Selene could see the tight lines of her shoulders, like steel cables strained past their capacity.

“I’m sure the right master is out there for you, but to give him what he deserves, you need to be healthy. I don’t know that much about being a good slave from the inside out. You’re right that it’s not who I am. But it seems to me a good slave should be like, oh, a good butler or executive assistant or something. Able to take on whatever needs to be done at a moment’s notice. Even if he’s making the decisions, you need to be able to carry them out. You need to be strong for him when he needs you to be, and not just handling a whipping or something but being a rock for him when he needs one. What if your master was in a bad accident or got cancer or something? You’d need to be able to be strong for him, to take care of him, to make decisions in his place, maybe. When free people flub up, it only screws up our own lives. You’re a reflection of your master, so you have to be the best
you
that you can be. And that means dealing with whatever demons are haunting you. A master who cares for you will help, but you have to start the work yourself.”

She was making it up as she went along, but Natalie’s clouded face brightened a bit. “So I might do better finding the right one if I weren’t so scared all the time? Scared to act, scared to make decisions, scared to love or be loved, but scared to be alone…”

Selene, hoping she was telling the truth, nodded. “At the very least, you’ll be more likely to recognize a good guy when he comes along.”

“Do you know someone,” Natalie said, “who wouldn’t try to change the parts of me I like? It’s so hard. I know there’s something not quite right inside me, even before Derrick got me so I didn’t know which way was up, but I’ve been scared to get help because I’m afraid they’ll tell me I’m
all
wrong, that I need to stop being who I am. Stop being kinky.”

Selene slipped her arm around Natalie’s narrow shoulders. “Alison handed out a list of kink-friendly therapists when she talked to my grad school class. She said she knows some of them.”

“I should get back to my mom’s,” Natalie said in a small voice, “and get out of your hair, but I’ll take that list if you can find it, and I’ll talk to Alison later. And talk to my mom about moving into her place for a while.”

After she left, Nick pulled Selene close and gave her a resounding kiss. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I think she listened to you. She never listened to me that well.”

“Maybe some people would say that making herself a better slave isn’t the healthiest reason to see a shrink,” Selene said. “But hey, if I thought it would get her to therapy, I’d tell her she’d find a pot of gold in the office after her tenth session.” She paused. “And I think I’ve just learned something important for my work. Someone can be an abuse survivor and deserve help and compassion, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll be easy to deal with. Sometimes people who’ve gone through hell can be awful, to themselves and everyone else. And sometimes the most compassionate thing to do for someone is call her on her bullshit.”

“Natalie always was a little damaged. What she went through this year just made it worse. But I never had the guts to call her on it because I loved her and I couldn’t handle the hurt in her eyes.” Nick hugged Selene again. “I may be the dom and act all tough in the bedroom, but in a lot of important ways, you’re tougher than I am.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Selene took a deep breath, took Nick’s hands and looked into his eyes. “I want to try the cane again.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes…” A split second’s hesitation. “I hate being afraid of something you like. I hate being afraid, period.”

“You don’t need to push yourself. Of course, if you really are ready, whee! I like canes. But I like you more.”

She grinned a little weakly, trying to hide the way she was lurching between arousal and terror. “It’s not unselfish, Nick. I need the closure. That was an awful night and I feel like we need to redo it again and do it right this time. And besides,” she added, a little more confidently than she felt, “I bet it’ll be fun when we’re not fighting.”

It was afternoon when they got started this time, broad daylight. Selene asked for that specifically, to have the autumn sun streaming in through the blinds as Nick beat her, to make this a normal, bright thing, not a thing of darkness. Nick had drily suggested using Jimmy Buffett as scene music, and she’d smacked him. This allowed them to get into a playful wrestling match in the living room.