Reconstructing Meredith (14 page)

My mouth watered. I was hard, so hard, and if I didn’t fuck her soon, I’d go out of my mind. But just a few more hits with the cat o’ nine tails. Just a few more.

Whoosh. Crack.

Whoosh. Crack.

Whoosh. Crack.

She screamed. I barely kept myself from groaning.

Her screams suddenly made sense. They weren’t slurred, murmured nonsense or profanity or pleas for more. How had I missed it? How had I not understood?

“Red! Red!” she sobbed, her voice hoarse, strained. “Red, Scott,
red!
”

Had she been screaming that all along? God, yes, she had. Why hadn’t I understood?

And why was I still hitting her?

“Red! Red! Red!”

The safe word ran down her back in rivers, smearing with each strike of the cat o’ nine tails, covering her skin with streaks of red, red, red…

Scott, what are you doing
?

“Red! Scott, please, stop…”

Whoosh. Crack. More red.

Whoosh. Crack. Rivers of red.

Whoosh. Crack. The word, the color, the sound, the blood…

“Scott,
please
…”

* ~ *

My eyes flew open.

The room was dark and still, completely silent except for my thundering heart and sharp gasps for breath. Goose bumps prickled under a layer of icy sweat, and I shivered even beneath the covers. Beneath the covers, and with the warmth of Amy’s body beside me.

I turned toward her, squinting to make out her shape in the darkness. She was on her stomach, the covers draped over her up to her shoulder blades. Nausea rose in the back of my throat as I remembered her back sliced to bloody cross-hatched ribbons while she’d screamed and
screamed
. Milky light from the street illuminated her skin just enough for me to see that she was unscathed and unharmed, and cool relief washed over me.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes and feeling like a goddamned idiot. Of course she was all right. It was a dream. I’d never ignore a safe word. If Amy couldn’t get into subspace, couldn’t relax, or—God forbid—screamed like that, everything would have stopped long before I’d taken nearly enough strokes to do that kind of damage. Nor would I ever hit her that hard to begin with. I’d never do what I’d done in the dream, but it was unsettling nonetheless to be in the mind, if only for one dream, of someone who would.

My skin crawling and my stomach turning, I got out of bed. I moved as stealthily as I could, stepping carefully in case Malia was on the floor somewhere. When I got to the bathroom, I closed the door before I turned on the light.

Leaning on the sink, I stared at my own reflection.

Of course it was only a dream. Amy was uninjured, sleeping peacefully in my bed. But it was so fucking
real
.

Was I insane? Christ, I’d had some fucked up dreams involving subs and other Doms, especially lately, but this… what the fuck was this? I closed my eyes and let my head fall forward, swallowing hard while I tried to get my mind around the fact that some crazy neuron deep in my subconscious had actually thought of getting turned on while I bloodied a screaming submissive. While I ignored a safe word. While I hurt Amy.

I shuddered, just barely keeping myself from getting physically ill.

It was just a dream. Just my subconscious doing some fucked up mental gymnastics with all the shit I’d dealt with recently. Nothing more.

I hadn’t hurt Amy. I wouldn’t hurt Amy. I couldn’t hurt Amy. I couldn’t hurt any of my submissives if my life depended on it. They knew it. I knew it.

“Fuck,” I muttered. I ran some cold water and cupped my hands beneath the faucet. I splashed it on my face a few times, then turned off the water and reached for a hand towel. I gave myself one last look in the mirror.

I still couldn’t shake this unsettled feeling. It was like trying to go to sleep after a particularly bad horror movie. I knew it wasn’t real, that it couldn’t happen in a million lifetimes, but it had crawled beneath my skin and into my veins nonetheless. The cold slime of horror and disgust didn’t care how intellectually certain I was that I hadn’t really beaten Amy into a bloody, screaming mess. I’d seen it, I’d experienced it, and that was enough.

“
Red! Red! Red!
”

I shuddered. So much for a good night’s sleep.

“Just a damned dream,” I whispered to my reflection, and flicked off the light.

I slipped through the silence to my bed. Amy hadn’t moved, but Malia had parked herself on my side of the bed. I picked her up and set her aside so I could get under the covers. Being the defiant little shit she was, she immediately went back to where she’d been and laid down again.

“Malia, move,” I whispered. I picked her up again, this time setting her on the floor.

Undeterred, she jumped back on the bed, this time trotting across to the other side, which meant running right over Amy. Amy stirred, murmuring something as I got into bed beside her.

She lifted her head and looked at me in the darkness. “Where did you go?”

“Bathroom. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured. She rolled over and cuddled up next to me. I wrapped my arm around her and she rested her head on my shoulder. In minutes, she’d fallen back to sleep, oblivious to the ice in my veins. I lay awake for a long, long time, running my fingers up and down her back just to remind myself that no, those cuts weren’t real, and yes, it was just a dream.

A dream, Scott.

Just a sick, twisted, fucked up dream.

“Ready to try a little bondage?”

Meredith glanced down the hall toward the dungeon.

“If you’re not,” I said, “just say so.”

“I’ll be fine.” Her voice was hollow, not completely steady, but her eyes were determined. Nervous but wanting and, she probably hoped, ready.

I led her down the hall to the dungeon. We’d been at this for a couple of weeks now, but we’d moved slowly. Slow enough to keep from triggering more than the rare flashback, but also slow enough to frustrate her. Though she hadn’t out and said it, I had no doubt she was getting impatient. I had yet to bind or even cuff her, which aggravated her to no end. I’d flogged her on the Saint Andrew’s Cross, but she’d only held the restraints rather than being bound to them.

Tonight, though, she was ready for some bondage.

I opened the dungeon door. Meredith stepped past me and I closed it before my cat could make her usual run for the Saint Andrew’s Cross.

I regarded Meredith silently for a moment. She looked over the rack of various floggers and the Cross. As she did, the nerves she tried to hide made themselves known in her shifting weight, creased forehead, and the way her shoulders rose and fell when she took a deep, ragged breath.

“You sure you want to do this in here?” I asked. “We can go—”

“No, this is fine.” She offered a reassuring smile. “I can handle it.”

I wondered if she knew I could see the goose bumps on her arm.

We’d stick to our usual slow steps today, then. Definitely slow steps.

“How comfortable are you with being tied to the Saint Andrew’s Cross?”

She looked at it and shuddered. Still, she turned back to me. “I think I can handle it.”

I glanced at the cross, then at her. “I’m going to just bind your hands this time.”

“I think I’m okay with my ankles, too,” she said.

I shook my head. “Not until I know you can handle wrists only.”

“Scott, I can handle it.” The temperature of my blood dropped a few degrees. Her tone was laced with an all too familiar edge of irritation, the same tone I recognized from whenever she’d picked a fight years ago.

I kept my voice calm. “Most likely, yes. I just want to be sure.”

She glared at me. “I freaked out once. It doesn’t mean I’m going to do it again.”

“I’m not going to encourage it to happen again,” I said. “I’m not saying ‘absolutely not,’ Meredith. This is just to make sure you’re okay, then we’ll move on to total bondage.”

Exhaling sharply, she ran a hand through her hair and shifted her weight. “Well, in that case, maybe you should just tie one hand for now. And if I can handle that, in six months or so, we’ll add the other hand.”

I gritted my teeth. “We’re taking small steps, babe, we’re—”

“There’s a difference between taking small steps and dragging your goddamned feet,” she snapped, her anger sending me back a step.

“I don’t want to rush this, Meredith, I’ve—”

“That’s easy for you to say,” she said through clenched teeth. “You’re not the one who has to live with all this shit in your head. Taking it slow and easy might be comfortable for you, but it just means that much longer I have to let this fucking control me.”

“And moving too fast could make things worse. A lot worse. You know that.”

“Or we could take baby steps with every little thing, which means we’ll be at this for years.”

“If that’s what it takes, then that’s what we’ll do,” I said.

“What happened to pushing limits?” She narrowed her eyes. “You said my limits dictate where this goes and what we do. What happened to the submissive being the one in control?”

“Look, your limits dictate how far I
can
push you, so—” I stopped abruptly. One of us speaking without thinking and being completely irrational was more than enough. I took a deep breath and forced my tone to be gentle and even. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to push you all the way to those limits every time. It’s at my discretion. You came to me looking for a Dom, and part of being a sub is deferring to my judgment to make sure every scene is pleasurable for you as well as safe. Emotionally and physically.”

“Don’t pretend you’re not getting anything out this, Scott,” she snarled. “You wouldn’t be a Dom if you didn’t like control.”

“Yes, I like control. I won’t deny that.” I fought to stay cool. “I’m a Dom because I like power, control, whatever, but I’m not going to put that ahead of your well-being. That, and do you really think I have all the control here? You’ve had the power from the beginning to stop—”

“To stop things, yes.” She squared her shoulders and spoke through gritted teeth. “I can apply the brakes all I want, but I can’t exactly push on the gas pedal, can I?”

I couldn’t tell if she was pissed at me or the demons who’d driven her into my arms in the first place, but the last thing this conversation needed to do was escalate. I took a deep breath before I continued. “If I thought you were ready for more, I’d give you more. You asked me to be your Dom, and that’s what I’m doing. That means using my judgment about—”

“I don’t
need
you to decide what I can fucking handle,” she growled.

“So you don’t trust my judgment?” I snapped, letting fury get the best of me. “Then what the fuck are we doing?”

“You tell me, Scott. You seem perfectly content moving at a snail’s pace, so—”

“What am I supposed to do? Am I going too slow because I didn’t agree to bring in a goddamned stranger after a flogger on
my hand
freaked you out? I know you want to get through this, but it’s simply not going to happen overnight.”

She snorted. “Yeah, that’s apparent.” She glared at me. “I’ve spent enough of my life letting someone else make those decisions for me in recent years, thank you.”

My heart stopped. I stared at her in disbelief, and several seconds ticked by before I could finally speak. “Don’t you fucking dare compare me to him, Meredith.”

She set her jaw. “How is what you’re doing any different?”

“You mean besides the part where I’m doing it out of concern for your safety and well-being?”

“So it’s for my own good?” Her sarcasm set my teeth on edge.

I nearly lashed out, but bit my tongue.
Easy, Scott. Defuse it, don’t make it worse
. I took a deep breath. “Meredith, don’t do this. You know full well I am nothing like him, and my motivations have everything to do with keeping you safe.”

She exhaled hard and put her hands up. “Fine, fine, just wrists then. Let’s do this.”

I looked at the flogger, which was still in my tightly clenched fist. Sighing, I shook my head. “No. Not now.” I set the flogger down.

“What?”             

“Not after we’ve argued.” I stepped toward her, reaching for her waist, but she jerked back from me.

“So you’re punishing me now? The submissive defies her Dom, so she gets nothing?”

I closed my eyes and released a frustrated breath. “No, I am not punishing you.” I looked at her. “I won’t flog a sub—you or anyone else—when I’m angry, and we both need to cool down.”

Closing her eyes, she pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled sharply. Then she threw her hands up. “You know what? Fine. Take all the time you want to cool off.” She started for the door.

“Meredith, wait, let’s—”

The dungeon door slammed. I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth as her footsteps faded down the hall. A moment later, the front door banged shut.

I could have gone after her, but it would have been pointless. I knew her well enough to know she was beyond reason right now. A little time, a little space, then we could talk.

Sighing, I walked out of the dungeon and down the empty hallway to the living room. I sank on to the sofa, kicked my feet up on to the coffee table, and let my head fall back. I stared up at the ceiling with unfocused eyes.

As soon as my feet were up, Malia stepped on my ankle and used my legs as a bridge from the coffee table to my lap. I winced when her balance wavered and her claws dug in, but for the most part, I just didn’t care. I might have noticed if she’d tried to use my leg as a scratching post again, but even that was debatable.

She curled up on my lap, purring and rubbing on my hand. Absently I scratched her ears and petted her. The purring grew louder, and her claws poked through my jeans as she kneaded my leg.

I looked down at her. “Well, at least someone in my life isn’t pissed at me.”

And I’m crazy, because I’m having a conversation with my damned cat. Again
.

I sighed and set her on the cushion beside me. Then I stood and headed into the kitchen for a drink. Malia trotted beside me, and when I reached into the refrigerator for a bottle of Coke, she squawked at me. I looked over my shoulder, and she sat beside her food dish. Sitting perfectly straight, looking as regal and dignified as Bast herself, she swept her tail back and forth in indignant arcs, informing me I was needed to remedy her lack of food.

I chuckled and rolled my eyes. “Should’ve known you wanted something, you little witch.”

I picked up her dish and filled it while she meowed and wound figure-eights around my legs. Then I set it down, and while she ate, I scratched her back. Her tail snapped back and forth. Evidently my services were no longer required.

“At least I know what I’m supposed to do for you,” I muttered.

I poured my drink and went back into the living room. Lounging on the couch, I let my mind wander back to another time and place. Sitting on a different couch, alone in a cramped apartment, with the slamming door echoing in my mind just like it did now. Who knew what we’d fought about that time? I’d probably neglected to wash the dishes when it was my turn. Or she might have parked too close to my car again, making it a pain in the ass for me to get in and out.

Whatever it was, it was a scapegoat. Something we could yell and nitpick and bitch about, eventually resulting in her storming out and leaving us both to cool off. What we were probably really fighting about was the fact that she didn’t think I wanted to discuss feelings or I didn’t want to discuss the feelings she wanted to talk about. Money or lack thereof. Commitment or lack thereof. Nothing that had a damned thing to do with dishes or car doors.

We fought. She left. I waited. She returned. Same shit, different day.

In my memory, the apartment’s front door opened and I looked up as she closed it behind her. Neither of us spoke when she crossed the narrow distance from the door to our hand-me-down sofa. Long seconds ticked by while we avoided eye contact. Avoided
any
contact.

Tick. Tick. Tick
.

No one moved.

Tick. Tick. Tick
.

She sat beside me.

Tick. Tick. Tick
.

I put my arm around her. She leaned against me and I released my breath. Her skin was hot, so she must have walked around the block a few times to clear her head.

Eventually, one of us sighed and apologized. “I’m sorry.” “Me too.” We settled the dishes or car doors or whatever the fuck it wasn’t about. It was no wonder we didn’t work out. We sucked at fighting. Well, that wasn’t true. We were damned good at fighting. It was the communicating and meeting halfway afterward that didn’t quite happen the way it should have.

In the present, I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed. Obviously some things hadn’t changed. She was still the type who had to go cool off alone. I could still simultaneously be relieved that she’d ended the fight by leaving and be worried she wouldn’t come back.

Maybe I
was
being too cautious, moving too slowly. More than once, I’d been accused of being a frustratingly cautious Dom, and I didn’t deny it. But what was I supposed to do in this situation? It didn’t take a genius to choose between frustrating her and traumatizing her.

Her determination to get through this encouraged me, but it unnerved me a little too. She was hellbent on breaking free from her past, and her desperate need to make as many leaps and bounds as possible had some potential to backfire on her. Like an injured runner returning to the track, she had to be careful not to overdo it and set herself back even farther.

Of course, that left me in the position of the running coach who had to gently remind her from time to time not to push herself too far. When she pushed too hard and her past pushed back, what better place to hide from it than behind
our
past? Duck into that old smokescreen of screaming and slamming doors, because at least then we didn’t have to talk about the real problem.

This wasn’t about us. It wasn’t about anything I did or didn’t do. Deep down, she had to know why I was doing things the way I did, and I had no doubt that was what pissed her off. The
reasons
I went so slow with her, not the fact that I did so.

Whatever was really on her mind, whatever had really set her off, we had to get past this. Arguing about car doors or ankle cuffs when the problem was something much bigger and deeper would get us no farther now than it did back then. If we couldn’t communicate without falling back into our old, volatile ways, we couldn’t operate as a Dom and sub any more than we could operate as a couple.