Somebody’s Perfect

by Kallypso Masters

  Once everyone was inside, Dad wheeled the triplet stroller across the foyer. Dressed as three peas in a pod, the babies must have made the rounds in their neighborhood, too.

  “Karla, those costumes are adorable,” Savannah said. The smile erased the strain on her face, but he wasn’t sure she was genuinely happy or just putting on a show. “Did you make them yourself?”

  “Oh, Lord, no. But when I saw those peapods, I just couldn’t resist.”

  The babies stared wide-eyed and in awe at Marisol before Kate let out an ear-piercing scream followed by wails from the others. “Hey, none of that!” Dad said. “Look! It’s Marisol-Mulan, a brave hero to her people.”

  Unfazed by their reaction, Marisol pirouetted for them then remembered her role as Mulan and lifted her aluminum foil-covered sword high over her head. “I came to warn you! The Huns are here in the city!”

  Dad shielded the babies with his body while peering through the glass storm door for unseen enemy combatants in the yard. Soon, Dad sighed theatrically, stood, and said to her, “Looks like you’ve frightened the Huns away, Mulan. I’m sure they’ve heard what a brave and mighty warrior you are.”

  Damián added, “And that’s high praise coming from one of the bravest warriors of all.”

  Dad waved away his words, but Marisol stood a little taller before lowering her sword and nodding, always in awe of her grandpa and his heroism. Then the eight-year-old in her returned. She giggled as she set her purple pumpkin full of candy on the floor and knelt in front of the stroller, thrilled by the reactions of the triplets. Rori’s eyes opened as wide as saucers, while Pax tried to grab her rope hair and pull it loose from its bun. That had been Dad’s contribution to the costume, at Savannah’s request. He’d fashioned it from a new batch of hemp he’d bought for rigging Karla at the club.

  As if just remembering the primary reason for their visit, Marisol stood, picked up her plastic pumpkin, and held it out to Karla. “Trick or treat, Grammy Karla!”

  Karla grabbed several hands full of goodies from her large half-filled bowl. Marisol would be bouncing off the walls for a month. When Marisol started to pull her pumpkin back, Karla added, “Wait! For protecting my home and family, Mulan,” Karla said, “you deserve something extra.”

  Dad moved the stroller into the living room, followed by Karla and the Orlando trio. Inside, Karla picked up a large gift bag from the floor beside the door. Pink and purple tissue paper exploded from the opening. It looked more like a birthday present than a Halloween one, but Damián loved that Karla doted on his muñequita almost as much as Dad did.

  Seconds later, she pulled out a black and white stuffed kitten and held it to her cheek, closing her eyes. “It looks just like Boots!”

  “Sit down, Savannah.” Karla motioned to her rocking chair. “I’m sure you’re dead on your feet.”

  “Let me put on a pot of coffee,” Dad said. “Savannah, would you like some herbal tea?”

  “Sounds wonderful. It got quite chilly out there after the sun went down.”

  “And some hot cocoa for you, Marisol?” Dad asked.

  “With marshmallows?”

  “Mari, remember your manners,” Savannah chided.

  Chastened, she said, “Marshmallows, please, Grandpa, if you have some.”

  “No worries, hon. I know how my punkin likes her cocoa. We’re always well-stocked.” He turned to Damián. “Join me in the kitchen.”

  It wasn’t a request. Damián followed Dad down the hallway toward the kitchen. Damián started the kettle while Dad pulled out a box of cocoa and a bag of marshmallows and retrieved several mugs. He glanced up. “Is Savannah doing okay? She looks a little…tired.” Nothing much escaped Dad.

  “She’s worrying herself sick about the upcoming trial. We’ll be heading to California in early December, if the doctor gives the go-ahead.”

  Damián’s primary job was to keep her and the baby safe and protected. “How did Karla do on the trip out to our wedding when she was so pregnant?”

  “If her doctor or I had known she was carrying triplets, we never would have let her go out there.”

  “I’m not sure she’d have given you a say.”

  A muscle clenched in his jaw. “She’s headstrong, that’s for sure. But if she thought there was any danger to her or the babies, she wouldn’t have gone. I still hate to think what would have happened if she’d hemorrhaged in the desert on our trip the way she did here at home after the babies were born.”

  Damián closed his eyes a moment but couldn’t shake the notion of something similar happening to Savannah.

  “Aw, fuck, son. Don’t listen to me. You have enough to worry about. Doc Palmer says that was a one in a million occurrence.”

  Damián nodded. “Believe me, you aren’t making me think of any scenario I haven’t already considered. Being an expectant father is worse than any mindfuck I could come up with.”

  “Hate to break it to you, but the worrying only gets worse after they’re born.”

  He thought about the scare he’d had when he thought Gentry had kidnapped Marisol, too. “Tell me about it.” Asking for Dad’s help made him feel like a failure, but fixing this was more important than his ego. “Listen, I wonder if you’d have time to talk later.”

  “I have time now. Shoot.”

  He raked the fingers of both hands through his hair until they butted into his suede hair tie, and he held on. “Dad, I’m out of ideas on how to prepare Savannah to face that POS Gentry on the stand without freezing or making herself sick. I thought maybe some BDSM techniques might help.”

  “That’s more than a five-minute conversation,” Dad said, pouring cocoa into a mug and adding the mini marshmallows. “I’ll need to help Karla get the babies to bed within the next hour or so. And Savannah looks whipped. Why don’t you stop by tomorrow for a late lunch? Say about one? Karla and the kids usually nap about then.”

  “Sounds good.”

  * * *

  When Damián arrived during his lunch break from the shop, Dad held a finger over his lips. “Karla and the babies are napping.” After he served Damián a quick bite and drink in the kitchen, Dad motioned him down the hallway toward his office.

  Damián couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one of these office talks—probably the one right after Dad’s honeymoon when Damián had told him Savannah had shown up after all these years. This conversation was long overdue. Things had been going so well between him and Savannah until recently. He ought to be able to fix this himself, but his ideas about how to keep Savannah from shutting down any further had run dry.

  Some fucking Dom and husband I am.

  Time for him to grow a pair and accept help. Dad had helped him so many times before. Damián hoped he’d have the answers he needed for Savannah today. But how much did he want to admit to Dad about how distant the two of them had become sexually?

  He rubbed the leather band on his wrist. During their last serious office sit-down, Dad had brought him this handmade gift from Sergeant Miller’s oldest daughter, Tracy. Touching it grounded him in some weird way. He liked to think Sergeant’s spirit came closer in the times he used it as a touchstone. Like today.

  Dad took a seat behind his desk. “We’d better cut to the chase. They don’t nap as long as they used to. Don’t want to be interrupted, if we can help it.”

  “Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time for me. I’m worried about Savannah.”

  “Of course, you are. That’s why I asked you to join me in the kitchen last night. Saved me the trouble of having to drag your ass in here. Good thing you finally asked for this talk.” Dad leaned forward on his elbows and tented his fingers in front of his chin. “What’s going on?”

  Damián, comforted to know Dad would always have his six, explained how the trial date moving up had resulted in Savannah having nightmares again. That he didn’t think she ate enough, and, most worrisome, she withdrew from him emotionally and…physically. He didn’t say they weren’t hav
ing sex anymore, but Dad probably guessed it. “I hate seeing all our hard work undone. She’s shutting down again. I need some advice on how to keep her from pulling further away. Maybe some on how to train her to be ready for the trial, too, when she’s going to have to face that POS from a few feet away. That’s what’s got her rattled the most.”

  “Can you blame her? You’ve given her space to deal with her fears, but that hasn’t worked. You’re going to have to find a way to make her deal with it.”

  “I have no doubt about that.” He scrubbed his face. “I’ve never forced her sexually, but her innate service orientation sometimes has her forcing herself to try and please me, even when it’s not what she wants to be doing. It’s like she thinks I expect her to service me, but she won’t let me reciprocate. How do I even reach her anymore?”

  “Same way you did before. She’s come a long way from that shell of a girl who showed up on your doorstep nearly a year ago. She responded to you because she trusted you to be open and honest with her.”

  “I thought that’s what I’ve been doing.”

  “You’ve been loving, supportive, and worshipping the ground she walks on. Yeah, you have to be understanding of physical changes, what with her being pregnant, but you also have to be firm with her. It’s what she needs most right now. She’ll find her security in having you behaving consistently within the Dom/sub terms you two established in your relationship.”

  He thought about that a minute before responding. “Yeah, kinda like you were with me when I was showing signs of PTSD. BDSM helped me regain control when I was going through that shit, and it’s helped Savannah with hers, too. But I’ve run out of techniques that help. I’m stumped.” He gave a self-deprecating smile, hoping to lighten the mood. “In more ways than one.”

  Dad shook his head at the bad attempt at humor. “Fixing things is what you do best, son. Don’t forget how far you’ve brought her since she witnessed Patti’s cathartic whipping last winter.”

  But it wasn’t enough, apparently, and time was running out. “I’ve tried everything in my tool chest—or toy bag, as the case may be.”

  “Savannah’s a masochist, whether she self-identifies that way or not. She’s used to you being able to take her to dark places and bringing her back even stronger.”

  “But with her pregnancy, I’ve been unable to play at the extreme level we did before.”

  “And the limitations will only increase in the coming months, until the doctor gives the all clear after the baby’s born.”

  “That’s too late.”

  “What have you tried so far?”

  Damián mentioned his piss-poor attempts but withheld his suspicions about the night she’d deep-throated him. At the time, he’d thought those tears had been from her gag reflex. Looking back from where they were now, in effect, she’d raped herself on his dick. And he’d let her. Sure, he’d expected her to be honest with him about her feelings and didn’t realize at the time she’d reverted to old behaviors. But a Dom was supposed to be observant. “Our last healthy scene was on the afternoon she learned the trial date. I managed to get her into subspace, but since then, nada.”

  Dad turned away a moment, intent on some spot across the room, before meeting his gaze again. “If your bomb isn’t big enough, you drop a bigger fucking bomb.”

  What was he suggesting? “I can’t strike her any harder in our scenes. What if I harm her or the baby?” He’d never be able to live with himself if he did that.

  “I know that, dumbass. That’s what mindfucks are for. You’ve pulled off some kickass ones with her. Come up with some way of making her believe she’s being struck harder than she actually is, and you might push her to the place she needs to be.” He let that sink in as Damián started to think about possible ways to play a mind game with Savannah when Dad added, “Hypnosis is your answer here. It helped you a few times in the past.”

  Dad had used every trick in the book during the first two years Damián had moved in with him after Balboa. And Savannah’s therapist had encouraged them to use some of the induction techniques with her when she was in a bad place, so they’d certainly played around with it before. Just not for a kink scene.

  “But what if I taint her testimony or cause Gentry’s case to be thrown out of court?”

  “Since when do the specifics of the trial come into your scenes? Your job as her Dom is to help her relax so she can reconnect with herself and with you. From what I can see and what you’ve told me, she’s completely disconnected, and I can’t blame her.”

  “Her therapist has been using hypnosis on her already. She even suggested we use some novice techniques at home anytime she’s shutting down emotionally, but Savannah’s good at hiding her feelings. She’s done it all her life.”

  “That coping mechanism helped her survive a shitstorm of a life, but she didn’t have a Dom back then to guide her, son. Don’t let her go back there again.”

  “Some Dom I turned out to be for her.”

  Dad growled. “Cry me a river. So you aren’t Jesus incarnate. Get over yourself. What else is stuck under your craw?”

  He swallowed and met Dad’s gaze. “When we’ve been intimate lately, I don’t think she’s being honest with me about where she is mentally and physically. How do I trust her to stop when she needs to?”

  “Sounds like both of you have some trust issues to work through. It’s time for you to set a time to play at the club where you can both cut loose. Some public play might do you both good and might even help prepare her for being on the stand with all eyes on her.”

  “Sounds good, but she hasn’t been interested anytime I’ve tried to play lately.”

  “Which one of you is the dominant in this relationship?”

  “Point taken.” He might have dropped the ball for a while, but Dad was right. Damián nodded.

  “Your primary goal will be the mindfuck. Make her believe she’s getting the level of pain she needs, and get her out of her head. Right now, her nerves are getting the best of her.” He paused a moment. “What if we hold some kind of event at the club and surround her with people she knows and trusts—invite owners only and their subs?”

  Damián thought a minute. The only event coming up was Thanksgiving, but that would be cutting it too close. He found himself rubbing the wristband when it came to him.

  “My Alive Day is two weeks away. Marc’s, too, so he’d probably bring Angelina. And Grant and Ryder were on that rooftop when the grenade went off, and you were up there soon after, too. It would be the perfect subterfuge to bring us all together to discuss it. Savannah would want to be there for me.”

  “Great idea, except that Ryder and Megan aren’t in the lifestyle.”

  “Could they be kink curious or at least open-minded about it?”

  Dad grunted. “Not something I intend to ask my baby sister.”

  “Marc hangs out with Ryder more than we do, since they live so close to each other. Maybe he can feel him out.”

  “I’ll mention that to him when I call to tell him what we’re planning. We can keep the kink stuff for after the Alive Day commemoration part of the evening. If Ryder and Megan aren’t interested, they can shove off before the fun starts.”

  For the first time in a long time, Damián had a plan, which calmed his own insecurities. “Sounds good.” Damián glanced down at the wristband before meeting Dad’s gaze again.

  “Now go plan your scene, son. And if you don’t have her squawking like a chicken, I’ll have you squawking while I tan your hide with your own bullwhip.”

  “Shit, Dad. Have a little faith.” Suddenly, he made a decision. He might as well be up front about it all, while he had Dad’s ear. “The last time we…were intimate… Well, after I thought about it a while, I think she did some things to please me rather than stop when she needed to. And, well, I was being a dick and not paying attention to her body language instead of just her…mouth…”

  Dad glared at him.

  “Yeah,
I know. I told you I was a dick. And I’ve been reluctant to pursue anything with her since that night.”

  “Because you don’t trust her to tell you no.”

  Damián thought about it a moment too long.

  “I assumed as much. Catch-22. You want to be sure she’s going to use her safeword before doing anything else BDSM related. But your own trust isn’t going to return until you do a scene, and she uses her safeword.”

  The use of hypnosis might break down some barriers.

  “Push her limits—but stay clear of known triggers,” he warned. Dad sure was in paternal mode today. “Remind her ahead of time what you expect from her as your submissive and what the basic rules of BDSM are—safe, sane, and, most of all, consensual. She has the right to say no at any point if she uses her safeword. Bottom line, she has to agree to tell you any time you’ve gone too far or she can’t handle it.”

  The possibilities for intense scenes were endless, and several scenarios played through his mind.

  As if he could see the wheels turning in Damián’s head, Dad chuckled. “I know you’re going to give her a night to remember, son.”

  “I’ll try something new that night so she won’t be able to predict what’s coming at her. We haven’t played with wax before.”

  “Excellent choice.”

  “I’ll have to run it by Doc Palmer to make sure she doesn’t have any concerns, of course.”

  “I can tell you now to stay away from her belly, chest, and the arteries in her neck.”

  Damián nodded. He had two whole weeks to prepare.

  Dad grew serious again. “Now that we have that sorted out, what would you like to do to commemorate your Alive Day? You know, this might be the first time we’ve gotten everyone together to talk about that day and definitely the first that will include Ryder. Long overdue.”

  Dad was right. As usual. While Damián and Marc had been given a lot of support because their injuries had been physical, Ryder and Grant probably harbored hidden wounds. Maybe even Dad, although his issues could stem from any number of conflicts he’d been involved in, military and civilian. He hadn’t had an easy life.