Scar Flowers (18 page)

Leah’s hand hovered over alligator clips and clothespins. “You’re too advanced for th
ose.” She selected a surgical clamp.

Faith’s shoulders rounded forward protectively.

Leah touched the cold metal handle to the girl’s flesh to coax the nipple erect and applied the clamp. The girl sucked in her breath with a whimper and released it in a wavering gasp as she rose up on her toes.

The girl’s nerve endings would be firing in earnest now, to set off alarm bells in the pain center of her brain. Within minutes she would swim in a bloodstream cocktail of compensatory
opioids, endorphins, and enkephalins, but for now her eyes swam with tears. She bit her lower lip. Faith was irresistible like this, all translucent beauty vibrating with emotion, like a plucked guitar string.

Leah sat on the chaise and patted her lap. “Face down.”

Faith blushed. But modesty would not be her only concern: with her hands bound, she would have to work at keeping her weight off the clamps.

The girl tried to position herself with her face toward Angel, but Leah made her turn the other way, to give him the most revealing view of her. She gave the girl’s behind a pinch to see her try to wriggle and squirm without disturbing the clamps, then directed Angel to hold the girl’s ankles so that she could not try to bring them up to
shield herself. She could use a wooden hairbrush for the blows, but a hand could be almost as painful, and Faith already had the clamps on. Besides, with a hairbrush she would miss feeling the girl’s flesh grow warm under her palm. She raised her arm, sleeve swaying, and brought it down with a smack.

Shame at her treatment of Simon and Paul flashed through her, but Faith’s
gasps and the tiny undulations of her hips soon erased the feeling. The girl buried her face in the red velvet chaise and hummed small sounds in her throat, her interlaced fingers trembling with each blow.

“That’s my girl,” Leah whispered. She knew
that Angel was there with her, in the same cage of electrified wires. Desire for unobtainable beauty. She suspected he also feared what he might do if he were to step outside the role of protector. Watching the girl, his eyes grew dark and flickered between her face and his hands where they grasped Faith’s ankles, as though reminding himself not to grip too hard.

By now the clamps would not be causing sharp pain, only a strong pull
and soreness in the surrounding flesh, numbness at the point of contact. The real fireworks would come when Leah removed them and sensation returned to the blood-starved flesh. She ceased her blows, and Angel helped her don a latex glove. With her left hand, she explored between the girl’s thighs for a few minutes. Only on the outside at first, softly. Like separating a shucked oyster from its shell.

But Faith showed no reaction. Leah knew exactly how to touch her, and with Angel
here, the girl ought to be beside herself.

Leah extended her arm for Angel to remove the glove, then submerged her hand in the bowl of ice and laid it on the most inflamed area of Faith’s skin, which made the girl cry out.

Long past the point that she had anticipated, Faith finally made a choked sound. Leah paused to put on another glove, bury her hand in the ice, and repeat the caress from before, but this time engaged the girl more deeply. She gave the erect button of flesh in the center of Faith’s sex a pinch so that the girl trembled. Leah leaned close to tell her how much she had aroused Angel, how beautiful she was like this. Then she pulled back and spoke in a brisk tone.

“Stand up.” Leah stroked Faith’s forehead. “That’s better.”
She nodded for Angel to get ready, then removed the clamps, pausing after the first one so as not to overwhelm the girl as sensation returned, but that did not keep Faith from giving a little scream after each. She sank to her knees, supported by the boy.

Welts, circular sunbursts of red, covered Faith’s breasts. Leah
whispered in the girl’s ear that she had watched her at night under the red light, that she knew everything about her. Faith must have heard, because she did not object when Leah kissed her neck, her face. Perhaps because she pretended that the caresses came from Angel. Whatever the reason, when Leah kissed her lips, the girl reciprocated. Soft and delicate. Not like kissing a man. At last, what she had waited for: Faith made a sound, a moan that vibrated in Leah’s mouth too.
Yes, that's my girl, my beautiful, beautiful Faith. Come back to me.
Leah filled the girl’s mouth with her gloved fingers, the ones that tasted of her, and looked into her eyes. Deep pools shot through with shafts of amber light.

My two dear ones.
This is the whole world.
This
is what I am.

But such a thought was a response to doubt, an answer to someone else’s question. The Simon in her mind’s eye still knelt at her feet
, but his eyes gleamed with knowing.
Understand
, she told him,
I know you. I can enter you at will
, but a small voice pleaded with him from inside her chest,
Let me go, let me go
.

“What have I done?” She had not meant to speak. The strength poured from her. Simon—she had drawn him in, used him, stripped him raw. Even the most ignorant tops knew not to do such a thing. Not even they would stalk, deceive, and abandon.

She had not just left him. She had run.

How long she wallowed in a sucking black hole of regret she could not tell, but when
Leah came back to herself, Angel was helping her into a chair. Faith, freed from her bonds, pressed a damp towel to her forehead. They would not let her stand or even explain herself, which made it worse.

“
Faith’s not hurt. She says she’s fine.” Angel crouched beside Leah’s chair. He put her hand to Faith’s cheek, and the girl smiled. The welts still glowed on her skin.

Whose work are those? W
hose house, whose feelings are these?

Leah closed her eyes and wept.

Mine.

Friday, June 30, 2:00 p.m.

“Such lovely scars. How’d you get them so raised and white?” Delilah traced the
marks across Faith’s shoulder blades.

The girl slid the straps of her tank top off her shoulders, the better to display Leah’s work.

“Cigar ash. I re-cut them every three weeks to build up the keloid, and Faith slept with plastic wrap on them for . . . what? Two months? I had to read her to sleep every night.”

Faith nodded and pantomimed the remembered pain and her sulking endurance. Smiling, making fun of herself. On a rare day of clear sunshine, the three women were in Delilah’s loft on
Western Avenue in downtown Seattle, a few blocks from Etta’s Seafood, where Leah had just taken Faith to lunch to celebrate the end of final exams—the sort of outing they’d used to have every week.

The loft,
a cement cavern with high ceilings and giant canvases of nudes on every wall, boasted a view of Puget Sound. Delilah, a high-cheekboned woman in her fifties, wore lavender capris and a white blouse, her blonde hair twisted in a chignon. Two of her four cats, plump and luxuriant as their mistress, sun-bathed on a window ledge ten feet off the floor. Faith sat on a brushed stainless steel gurney in the middle of a platform over-looking the dining room, a tray of tea and homemade cookies beside her. Delilah and Leah stood between her and the wall of windows.

“
You did beautiful work. And not everyone is lucky enough to have someone as dedicated as Faith.” Delilah sighed. “Remember when you trained with me, Leah?”

“Of course. Especially how much at home I felt.”
Memories of late-night conversations at the kitchen counter and cross-country visits to Delilah’s friends who were in the lifestyle sprang up. But her
Babylon
hotel room also materialized, along with a pang of loss.
Who ever thought of a hotel room as
home
?

“I’m glad to hear you say that.” Delilah’s smile seemed to hold back tears. She turned away to pour more tea in Faith’s cup. “Well, your old room is empty again.”

“Why? Where’s Sissy?”

“He moved out to start a boutique in
Pioneer Square. After three years together! But it’s his dream, and there’s an apartment in the back of the shop. I guess I can’t blame him. Maybe I’ll make that room into a dungeon, stop renting my downtown space.”

“I’m so sorry.” Leah took Delilah’s hand. Against expectation, it was fragile, with prominent bones under the soft
-ness. Her skin was beautiful as ever, but her coral lipstick had bled into tiny lines around her mouth, and the corners of her eyes tilted down. When had Delilah begun to grow old?

Not old. Alone.

“Faith, what are your plans?” asked Delilah. “Are you ready to graduate college?”

The girl shrugged and pulled at the dangling threads of her cutoff jeans.

“Well. The last person I did this on was an executive VP from
Denmark. Fifty-five needles.” Delilah used a pole with a hook on the end to snag the cream linen drapes and slide them closed, disturbing a black-and-white cat. “YinYang, you silly thing. Lie back down.” She produced a box of hypodermic needles, minus the syringes. “For the submissive, piercing is very invasive. You’re creating new orifices in the body, even if they’re temp-orary.” Delilah pulled on a pair of latex gloves and turned to Faith. “Are you ready, sweetie? If it’s all right with Leah, of course. Time for her to learn something new.”

“Do you still want to?” Leah smoothed her hand across Faith’s forehead.

The girl nodded.

“By the windows like this?”

“The drapes are closed.” Faith pulled her tank top off over her head.

The thin fabric
had not done much to conceal her long, dark nipples—
like chocolate gumdrops
, Leah had used to tease her—and when she walked, the girl’s cutoffs, though baggy, showed the crease where her buttocks met her thighs. Leah ran her fingers over the line of raised white scars on Faith’s back but resisted the urge to follow the furrow of her spine down to its terminus. Things had gotten so much better between them lately that Leah had to remind herself not to hope too much.

“Why don’t you lie down, Faith. People can get dizzy afterward, especially the first time.” Delilah set the tea tray aside and laid out a tub of antibiotic cream, a bottle of witch hazel, a pile of gauze pads, and an empty plastic container with a hole cut in the lid. “I can take pictures if you like the way it turns out. It’s pretty with ribbons threaded through the needles, like lacing on a bodice. But she may only want to do a few.” She put her gloved hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Such beautiful skin, Faith. You’re just a snow-white canvas. Can you breathe in on a count of five and out on five for me, honey?”

Faith raised her eyes, huge and dark, to Leah, who put a hand on her shoulder.

“Do the first one on me
, and then we’ll see how she feels.” Leah held her arm out to Delilah, and Faith squeezed Leah’s hand in thanks.

How could she not feel the desire to
defend this girl?

“Certainly.” She opened the box of needles. “These are
twenty-two gauge, on the thin side. They’re good if you’re working with someone who’s never done this before. Less bruising that way. Unless marks are what you’re after. Do you need some time to relax? I know you hate playing the sub.” Her eyes twinkled.

Leah
’s neck and chest burned with a blush that threatened to reach her face. How did Faith and Angel get so comfortable with the shame of being laid bare? She knew that was not the right way to look at it, that good dommes respected submissives. But she could not shake equating her own submission with weakness or avoid cringing at her experience as a sub: naked and outspread, unable to stop her own cries and spasms under the eyes of strangers, some of whom approached her later with unconcealed hunger.

“If I hadn’t experienced it myself, I wouldn’t be able to share so much with Faith.” Leah stroked the girl’s cheek. Warmth seeped through the drapes at her back. She could not recall what had driven her to leave her world for Simon’s. She belonged
here
.

Delilah nodded as she selected a needle. “The best dominas are usually switch
es. Not everyone can be one. How about you, Faith? Any desire to take up the whip?”

The girl swung her feet back and forth as she sat with her hands pressed under her knees. She smiled and shook her head.

“Let’s see your arm, then, Leah.” Delilah swabbed the area with alcohol and dipped a needle in antibiotic cream, told Leah to breathe in, hold, and let go. The pain was sharp at first, then it faded until she turned her arm to look at the sliver of metal, which tugged the skin. The sensation was a nagging reminder, something Faith would be attuned to; she liked to feel the boundaries of her body, to feel limited and controlled. She said it made her feel safe, especially knowing Leah was there at those times. The thought brought back images of the girl as she had been the last time they made love, flushed and dark-eyed against white sheets.

“You can leave it in for several hours if you like. In that case
, you’d want to cap the end with a piece of cork so nothing snags on it.” Delilah set out a handful of needles on a stainless steel tray and turned to Faith again. “Leah asked your permission for this before you came here too?”

As the girl nodded, heat surged into Leah’s face.

“Delilah. May I see you downstairs a moment? If you don’t mind, Faith.”

The metal staircase rang under their feet as Leah and Delilah descended. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined the hallway on either side of them:
coffee-table art books, philosophy, Homer in the original Greek. They entered Delilah’s bedroom, and she shut the door behind them.

“Faith
and I have been going through a rough spot lately,” Leah began. “And even if we hadn’t been—”

“
You wouldn’t want me to undermine your authority in front of her. I’m sorry, it just slipped out.” Delilah sat on the bed, which hung suspended from the ceiling by huge silver chains. Under a faux-leather bedspread, the water-filled mattress rippled. A one-eared orange tabby regarded them sleepily from the mass of scarlet pillows at the head of the bed. The walls of the room, covered in silver grass cloth, were hung with antique prints of couples in kimonos entwined in various sexual positions, the women’s eyebrows furrowed and mouths gasping in stylized expressions of passion.

“Leah. Are you happy?”

Happy.
Maudlin syllables from a child’s song that required everyone to grin and clap their hands. Leah stifled a laugh and a quick retort. Delilah was serious.

“Happy?” She laced her fingers together to quiet her hands.

“It’s not an easy path we’ve chosen. The danger in being the one in charge in all your relationships is that you can end up with partners who don’t know how to be there for you. That’s the attraction for them, being taken care of by someone strong.”

“Is that why you were afraid I’d lost sight of boundaries?”

Delilah scratched her eyebrow with her little finger before answering. “I’ve heard some rumors about you. I was planning to talk to you about them later anyway.”

“Rumors?” Leah leaned against the black lacquer dresser.
A bamboo wastebasket next to her foot held a form letter from a matchmaking service. The paper had a worn look at the fold marks, soft like suede. Delilah had scribbled a phone number across the top in her elegant cursive and doodled a series of winged hearts in the margins. For a moment she wondered if whatever the older woman planned to say stemmed from envy.

“Your trip to
Hollywood. Is it true that you’re stalking a celebrity?”

Numbness seeped into
Leah’s feet and traveled up her legs. “What?”

I know what you are.
Stalker. Crazy, pathetic.

“I should have put it better. You can talk to me
. . . are you in love?”

Leah did laugh then, over what felt like a pulse pounding in her stomach. “I’m surprised you’d wish that on me. You helped me escape my old life.”

“You’re not just a student to me, Leah. I hope you know that.” The waterbed sloshed as Delilah reached out to rub the tabby’s ears. “If this is true, that you’re doing nonconsensual edge play, I’m sure you know you’d be blacklisted, professionally and personally. Every time one of us—or even a pretender, a sicko—crosses the line, the entire community pays. We’ve been persecuted enough.”

“You’re right. You don’t have to tell me.” Leah pulled the needle from her arm, too fast. The holes in her skin throbbed as she rolled down her sleeve:
fool, fool, fool
. “But Faith obviously thinks I need to hear it.”

The tabby purred, butting its head
against its mistress’s hand.

“That’s a nice blouse. Be careful you don’t bleed on it.” Delilah handed Leah a tissue. “I’m not saying that I heard it from Faith. I’m not going to tell you who I heard it from. But you should know there’s been talk.”

“Whoever it was, did they also tell you I had a job on a film in L.A.? It’s over, and here I am, back home. Will that satisfy everyone?”

“Sweetie, I’m not trying to upset you. I have to ask you, for your sake and mine.”

“Yes. I know.” Neither of them spoke for several minutes. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, too. It’s . . . I keep coming up against the thought that there’s something more to this art. That it
is
art, even though most clients don’t see it that way. That part of it, the business part, is starting to feel sordid again. Like I’m back playing lick-my-shoes with seedy businessmen.” She flinched at the thought of her first job, as a rent-a-domme in a rundown dungeon near the airport. The other women there had been house-wives and college students in cheap lingerie, thick makeup cover-ing the circles under their eyes. None stayed for more than a few weeks. Poor pay, cinder-block rooms, clients with dirty underwear and sour-smelling bodies. But the men started asking for her, timing their visits to her schedule. “Even the breakthroughs that I’ve had with clients, when I help them face themselves . . . it’s lost meaning. And what I have with Angel and Faith comes and goes—sometimes it means everything, and other times I feel nothing. Then the movie came along, and it was . . . ”

“Inspiring?” Delilah said softly.

“Yes. I saw a chance to stretch myself. A new art form.” She reached for another tissue. “And I could do it. Some of it. The script was about a hypnotherapist; you and I have used hypnosis for years. I learned a few martial-arts moves, and suddenly I was a fight choreographer.” She sighed. “Being a domme is all I’ve ever been good at. Maybe I followed it too far. I’m just tired of it feeling like a one-way street or a dirty little secret.”

“What d
’you mean, you followed it too far?” Delilah’s voice took on a new edge.

“I mean too far outside of the community,” said Leah quickly. “The movie crew could tell I wasn’t one of them. And I couldn’t let them know the truth about me or I wouldn’t’ve been allowed there in the first place. Have you ever felt that way?” She widened her eyes and leaned toward her friend.