Saving Sunni (24 page)

Oops. As I spoke I realized I should have put Toby off while I checked, instead of just scheduling the meeting. Sir’s eyebrows knitted together, and he looked down at me as if I’d turned into a particularly disgusting slug oozing around his legs.

“I guess I should have asked first,” I continued lamely, “but I had put them off so long already, and you said it was okay for me to meet with them. It
was
your idea.”

That was a mistake. Sir took his plate from sage without a word and went to sit on the couch. He still glared at me, so I stayed on the floor where I was. This wasn’t going to end easily or smoothly.

“Did I not ask you,” he began, with a quiet but sharp edge in his voice, “to consult with me before arranging any meetings? Do you pay so little attention to my instructions?”

“Well, no, I—but I just felt so guilty that I went ahead and set it up,” I stammered.

“Don’t make excuses. You deliberately disobeyed my instructions.”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” I said miserably feeling both guilty and angry that Sir wasn’t being more understanding. “Do you want me to cancel the meeting?”

“No, but that’s beside the point,” he said. “You can have your meeting, but we will need to discuss how much time you’re going to have to put into puppy events with your new work schedule.”

I waited for him to continue, but after a couple seconds, he turned his attention to his dinner and started eating. He didn’t want to talk to me anymore, so I got up with a sigh and went to help sage with the dishes. Was Sir worrying about letting me get involved with other people and planning events while Randy was still in the area?

sage was still distant as we tidied up the kitchen, and I found myself getting depressed. All I could do lately was make people mad at me. Was I really so helpless and so stupid that I couldn’t be trusted to make any decisions or be on my own? When was this whole nightmare going to end? At the moment it felt like Randy was going to hound me for the rest of my life.

“Want to practice our forms?” I asked sage lamely. I just needed to interact with someone in a way that wasn’t about what a fuck-up I was.

She shrugged. “Sure.” It wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic response, but I wasn’t in the mood to be picky. I needed something to take my mind off Sir and the anger that was building inside me at his reaction. I forced myself not to think about it as sage and I went back to the living room. Sir had finished his dinner and was watching television, although he seemed to be thinking about something else entirely.

We went through the forms that we could remember, slowly and carefully. If one of us got stuck on a move, the other one usually remembered it, and between us we worked out four complete forms and most of another one. The exercise cleared my head a bit, although I was worried because Sir wasn’t watching us as he usually did. He was completely distracted, and my edgy feeling started to come back. He’d never acted so remotely.

The physical exercise really lifted sage’s mood. She swung her arms around exuberantly, stretching from side to side like we did in class, and even did a spontaneous frog jump. She knelt in front of Sir and smiled up at him. “What did you think of our forms, Sir?”

He started a bit, like she’d woken him up from a doze. A small, distracted smile flitted across his face, but he only glanced at her before turning back to the television.

“Very nice,” he said, sounding like he had no idea what she had just asked him.

sage was puzzled. The bouncy energy drained out of her body and down through the floorboards. After a minute, she gave up and came back to where I stood.

“Want to practice our punching and blocking techniques?” she asked, bored and a little depressed.

“Okay,” I said reluctantly, still watching Sir. I wanted a hot bath and some self-indulgent crying and maybe a carton of Ben & Jerry’s, but I forced myself into position facing off against her.

We ran through the first six or seven techniques quickly, taking turns punching and blocking. We were both aware of Sir’s distracted silence while we worked, and neither of us was really interested in what we were doing. Thinking that I would quit and treat myself to that bath and cry after all, I threw a punch that sage should easily have been able to block, except that she chose that second to look over at Sir.

I realized that she wasn’t paying attention a split second too late to pull the punch, and it caught her on the ear. The blow wasn’t very hard, but it was unexpected, and she wasn’t quite balanced. Her arms went out instinctively and grabbed at me. We both fell on the floor in a heap, me on top.

Her first reaction was to shove me as hard as she could and then put a hand over her ear, rolling onto her stomach. I was trying to pick myself up but her push sent me flying back into a side table next to the couch. Nothing broke, but the sound of the table and a stray coffee cup smashing into the wall and me crashing into the table must have been alarming. Sir was on his feet in a second, looming over us, a Mastiff about to throw himself into a snarling pile of fighting dogs. My irrational instinct was to cringe and cover my head with my arms, but then reason took over. Sir was only trying to determine if one or both of us was actually hurt.

Deciding that we weren’t, he held out a hand to each of us, helping us to our feet. I rubbed my upper arm where it had connected with the corner of the table, and sage was trying unsuccessfully not to cry. We stared at each other balefully.

“Why can’t you pay attention?” sage sniffed at me, rubbing her ear dramatically.

My mouth dropped open. “Me pay attention? You’re the one who looked away just as I threw a punch!”

“How was I supposed to know you were going to hit me?” she whined unreasonably.

“I don’t know. Maybe because we’re sparring?” I knew the pain in my arm increased my anger, but I didn’t care. I wanted a fight now.

“You’re just trying to hurt me to take out your anger toward Randy.”

I opened my mouth to tell her what I thought about her Psychology 101 bullshit, but Sir grabbed both of our arms and shook us a little. I yelped, and he moved his grip to my shoulder, but didn’t let go.

“This will end right now,” he said forcefully, his slight accent was more noticeable. I thought snidely that his inner Nazi was coming through, but I knew that was unfair. I forced myself to try to calm down before I said something that would land me in a lot more trouble than I was already in.

sage didn’t seemed to want to calm down. A couple of tears escaped and began to slide down her cheeks.
Great. Go for the sympathy angle.

“sunni,” Sir said, and his hold tightened, “apologize to sage for hitting her when she wasn’t looking.”

I stared at him, open-mouthed, unable to believe he blamed me for this whole thing.

“But—” I started.

He stopped me with a shake. “Apologize,” he repeated.

Fuming, I turned to sage. If Sir hadn’t been there, or had been a different kind of person, I would have told her I was sorry she couldn’t pay attention to block a simple punch. Instead I said sullenly, “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t going to be acceptable to Sir, but I wanted both of them to know how I really felt.

He continued to bore holes in my skull until I sighed and turned to sage again. “I’m sorry I hit you when you weren’t looking.”

Sir didn’t look exactly satisfied, but he turned to sage and gave her a little shake. “And now you, sage, apologize to sunni for pushing her into the table.”

sage gave the impression that she’d rather have a leg cut off and be tossed into a shark tank, but she narrowed her eyes and said, “Sorry I pushed you. But you were on top of me!”

Sir stopped her, since she was obviously trying to justify herself. “That is enough,” he said again. “I will not have this kind of bickering in my own house. I have had it—”

sage and I froze and gaped at him, trying not to think about the implications of his unfinished sentence. He was trying very hard to control himself. His jaw worked, and he took some deep breaths. Abruptly he dropped his hands and strode off toward the bedroom.

“Do what you want,” he said over his shoulder. “Knock each other out. I’m going to bed.”

Chapter 24

On Tuesday when I came home from work, Sir was sitting in the living room like he was waiting for the end of the world. sage was on the couch, pretending to read a textbook but there was a worried crease in her forehead. She snuck little glances at Sir every few minutes. I knelt in front of him, raising my eyebrows in a question, but he didn’t even stand. He absently put a hand on my head.

“My boss called today. They do not want me to come back to work. They’ve offered me a severance package that will tide us over for a bit, but…” He trailed off, staring past me.

I’d never seen him like this before. I put my head on his knee. “I’m sorry, Sir. But don’t worry. We’ll make it work somehow.”

“Thank you, pet,” he said, making an effort to smile at me. “I’m sure we will. We need to eat right away, if you don’t mind. Mary called and reminded me of the Decadence planning meeting that was scheduled for tonight. Do you mind fixing dinner? sage has a test tomorrow.”

I jumped up immediately, giving sage what I hoped wasn’t an unfriendly look, and ran to the kitchen to see what we had. Would we be eating Ramen noodles and hot dogs on a regular basis in the near future? I tried to put it out of my head, though, and be as cheerful as possible for Sir’s sake.

I was doing dishes when they arrived. When I came out of the kitchen, Sir, Delilah, Mary, Charlie, Roger, and Matthew were all crowded around the dining room table. It looked ridiculously small with all of them sitting there, like some kind of odd kitchen-chair huddle. The air was tense, although they stopped talking and gave me strained smiles when I came in. I wondered what new disaster was going on, praying it had nothing to do with Randy or me. Or Sir. But I went to tell sage to stay where she was before going back into the kitchen to get drinks and snacks. It was odd serving the guests without sage. Was that going to change too? I was in the middle of a snow globe, and when the flakes settled, the whole world was going to look different.

Roger was in the middle of a rant when I came back with the tray of drinks. “—said it before, but I really can’t take it anymore.” The others nodded sympathetically, which fueled his anger even more.

“All the media attention, their stupid questions, wanting to know why we hate women so much and how we manage to stay out of prison for raping and torturing them.” He shook his head, fuming at the thought. “I’m through with it. I’ve been explaining the lifestyle for years to idiots who think they’re morally superior because they talk about God while they cheat their customers and lie on their taxes. It’s enough. I’m shutting down Decadence. Delilah, you’ll have to refund everyone’s money. We’re not doing it this year.”

There was a combined gasp from around the table as his words sank in. Eyebrows shot up and everyone exchanged horrified glances.

Charlie spoke first, his normally cheerful face grave. “But we’ve been planning the show for months. All of the speakers are lined up. The vendors. How can you just shut it down like that and disappoint everybody?”

Roger slapped the table. “It’s my show, and I can shut it down if I want,” he growled. I offered everyone a drink as inconspicuously as I could and ran back to get the snacks.

“Roger, that is a very irresponsible attitude,” Sir was saying when I returned with two plates of cookies, crackers, and cheese. “There are many, many people counting on you. People have already put in for vacation, bought plane tickets, and re-arranged their schedules to allow them to come to this event. The vendors and speakers are relying on the income and exposure they get at Decadence as part of their businesses.”

“I agree,” Matthew said quietly. “This is not just about you and your frustrations. Decadence means a lot to a lot of people. It would be horrible for the community and for any future events we hold to cancel it at this point.”

“They’re right.” Delilah furiously scribbled notes as she talked. “If you don’t want to be involved this year, Roger, that’s fine. We’ll divvy up your responsibilities between us. You won’t even know it’s going on. Who wants to do the opening session?”

“Rune and I will do that,” Matthew said instantly, winking at me as I put a stack of napkins in front of him. I’d have to send my greetings to amy, his slave, before he left. “I think we can come up with something really interesting.”

“Oh, oh!” Charlie squeaked, bouncing in his seat. “Can I help with the Saturday general session? I’ve got some really
fantastic
ideas!”

Roger’s face went white, then red. A vein in his temple popped out and began to pulse, and I wondered if he might have a stroke. Mary watched him with an amused half-smile on her face, and when he sprang up, sending his chair crashing backwards, she was next to him in an instant, her hand on his arm.

“Calm down,” she said firmly. I had a quick visual of her in her leathers. She could definitely be commanding when she wanted to be. “You don’t need to give anything up if you don’t want to. It’s still your event. We just don’t want to see you throw it away because of some bad publicity and stupid reporters.”

He turned his head to look at her, and they locked gazes. They were like two dogs in a play for dominance. Roger had been in the scene for decades. He had trained a lot of people and prided himself on his ability to run a large household of slaves. Mary was probably, in his opinion, an upstart submissive who pretended to be dominant for money. The truth was, though, that she was an extremely smart and savvy businesswoman who knew what she wanted and how to take control of a situation. I was pretty sure she had several other businesses besides running The Keyhole and being a dominatrix. She had started out as a submissive, but that seemed odd to me. Not that submissives couldn’t be leaders, but her personality was so strong that it was hard picturing her giving up control to someone else.