by Smith, Maren
“It’s this way.” Hesitantly taking Pony’s hand, Cynthia drew her toward the stockroom behind the bar for rags and disinfectant. Carlson breathed a sigh of relief when she went.
“Okay,” Spencer drawled, “now I’m going to ask: What are you doing?”
“Biting off more than I can chew.” Scrubbing his fingers through his short dark hair, Carlson groaned, but he wasn’t even frustrated anymore. He was beyond frustrated, and he had no problem showing it as he yanked the nearest barstool close to sit down. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t intending to bring her here tonight. Cynthia called with a problem, so I thought, Pony’s been living cooped up at her mother’s house all this time—yeah,” Carlson confirmed when Spencer’s look switched from an unfinished eye roll to an ‘are you shitting me’ glare. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it, trust me. That entire living situation is the best description for dysfunctional that I have ever seen. Cynthia’s mother treats her like she’s five-years-old, and she can’t stand Pony. She hates her so much, she’s even told her so to her face. So here I thought, wouldn’t it be nice for everyone involved if I took the girls out for a while. Especially now that Ethen’s no longer in the picture.”
Spencer startled.
“Oh yeah. That happened last Friday. Ethen point-blank told them not to come back to the prison, he had no more use for them. Something Cynthia seems to be fine with…” Carlson held up a staying hand when the other dom’s surprise promptly narrowed into disbelief. “I know, I know. I’m on the fence about that one, too. She’s held that torch for a very long time, so it makes sense for there to be a little denial in play here. But she truly does seem okay. Pony on the other hand… So I figured, get them out of the house and away from Cynthia’s mother. I’ll be the first to admit, I should have thought that through a little further. It’s been a nightmare.”
Pulling up a stool beside him, Spencer sat down. “All right,” he sighed, folding his hands on the bar. “Hit me. What’s happening?”
“What didn’t happen?” he shot back, trying not to snap. It happened anyway. Just thinking about it made an afternoon of frustration in Pony’s company come bubbling back up again. “It started in the car when she refused to buckle up unless I ordered it. She refused to walk unless I ordered it. At the restaurant, she refused to talk to the waiter, or Cynthia for that matter. She would only talk to me, up until I realized she was only doing it if I said something that could be construed as an order.”
“She was trying to get you to top her,” Spencer mused.
“Yeah, well, I refused. I had Cynthia order for her, so then she refused to eat. She hasn’t spoken two words to me since. When she’s not looking at the ground, I swear to God, her face is fixed into the most blank, serene, and yet ‘fuck you’ expression I’ve ever seen. I just want to smack it off her.”
“She’s been without a dom since Ethen went to prison.”
“She’s never been with a dom,” Carlson scoffed. “Ethen’s not a dom. He’s a jackass who gets his kicks out of starving them for no reason other than to see if they’ll obey.”
“Thank you, love,” Spencer said when Klara brought them each a generous tumbler almost full of amber whiskey.
“On the house,” she said, “but you’re on restricted play for four hours if you drink it all.”
Both men scoffed.
“Your ass should be so lucky,” Spencer called as she retreated back out of earshot.
Carlson was too busy knocking back his glass to say anything at all. It was probably a mistake, but he drank half the tumbler in three gulps. It did not make him feel better.
“Uh,” Spencer said when he noticed.
Pausing long enough to breathe through the burn just now hitting his stomach, Carlson finished off his glass. He swallowed with a grimace, but that didn’t stop him from tapping the bar, signaling Klara to hit him again.
A good bartender with more than a few Black Light years under her belt, Klara looked to Spencer, who immediately refused. “You are no good to me drunk.”
“Consider this me calling in a personal day.” Carlson tapped the bar again. Pretending not to notice when Spencer and his wife exchanged looks, he muttered, “I don’t know what to do, but I have to figure something out.”
“This is not your mess.” Motioning Klara to hand him a bottle, he sent her to the other end of the bar before pouring a thin finger’s width of amber liquor into the bottom of Carlson’s empty glass. “Why are you so hellbent to fix it?”
“Because nobody else will,” he said, as annoyed with Spencer for pointing it out as he was with himself for shouldering the responsibility in the first place. Cynthia was his, and for her he would do just about anything. Pony, on the other hand, wasn’t, but the tie between the women ran too deep for him to ignore. Whatever harm came to Pony, Cynthia would feel it. Frankly, both women had already been hurt far more than their share. He really didn’t want to be the one to add to that.
He also really, really didn’t want to take Pony on as his submissive.
But there was no way he was going to leave Cynthia in her mother’s screwed up care. And if he took Cynthia, then there was no way he could leave Pony. Without Cynthia, it was only a matter of time before Pony ended up on the street.
“So, ideally we need someone willing to take Pony off your hands.”
“No,” Carlson corrected. “What I need, is someone who knows how to fix what Ethen’s done to her. She doesn’t need the lifestyle right now. She needs rehabilitation. Someone who can undo serious slave training. Cynthia wants independence. She wants to be able to dress her, bathe by herself, fix her own meals and then eat them without fear of doom and punishment. Pony doesn’t want even that much. She physically and emotionally cannot take care of herself, not even to the slightest degree. And financially?” He snorted. “Hell, she just got fired. I’ll bet she can’t hold a job right now any better than Cyn can. It would take a very specific type of man who’d be willing to take on a sub with all those problems.”
Tipping his head, Spencer nodded. “Yeah, it would.” He took a slow pull of his drink, savoring it as he swirled what was left in the bottom of his tumbler.
“Jesus,” Carlson muttered, picking up his glass as if inspecting what little was left in his. “Can you imagine the damage it would do to her if she connects up to another guy like Ethen?”
“Yup.” Tipping back his head, Spencer finished off his last swallow.
“I don’t think I can live with myself if she got hooked up with another jackass.”
“Nope.” Thunking his tumbler down on the bar, he clapped a hand on Carlson’s shoulder, giving a rare if comforting squeeze.
“Where are you going?” Carlson asked, turning his head to watch as Black Light’s manager stepped off his stool. He blinked, a little surprised when the room kept spinning.
“To make a phone call,” Spencer called back, then disappeared into his office.
“What?” Carlson asked, turning to find Klara moseying up to his side of the bar again. “He knows a guy, who knows a guy?”
“Who knows at least one other guy,” she joked, taking away both the liquor bottle and the empty glasses. “What else can I get for you? Water?”
“Adulting sucks,” he groaned, rubbing the back of his head. “Water, yes, please, and coffee. About four hours’ worth.”
“You got it, sugar.” Chuckling, Klara went to make a pot.
* * *
“You’re out of your mind,” Marcus Hawke said. “I don’t even do that work anymore.”
Cellphone held to his ear, Spencer rubbed his forehead, nodding even though he knew his old friend couldn’t hear or see it. “Yeah, I know. But this is a special case.”
“They’re all special cases. I still don’t do it.”
“Can you recommend somebody? Preferably someone kink friendly, who won’t fuck her up any worse than she already is?”
Swearing softly under his breath, Marcus went silent on the other end before
echoing, “Kink friendly?”
“Yeah.”
“All right.”
Spencer couldn’t see Marcus any more than the other man could see him, but from the sound of his voice, he was pretty sure Marcus was doing the exact thing he was: hunched over his desk, rubbing his face, reluctantly being dragged into something he really wanted no part of.
“What’s the situation?” He sounded tired.
“Asshole dom by the name of Ethen O’Dowell had her under his control for I don’t know how many years. Called himself the Menagerie Master, turned each of his subs into an animal, so to speak. Pony’s the last one. I don’t even know what he did to her, really. I just know she’s about as broken as a slave can get. I mean, she’s completely non-functioning—can’t hold a job, dress herself, make a decision—”
“Ethen O’Dowell?”
“Yeah. A real nasty piece of work. He’s been in jail for a while, but he’s about to get out. He cut his subs loose already, but of course she thinks she loves him and she’s not taking it well. A dom I know has been sort of taking care of her, but mostly because he’s got a vested interest in one of the others. The relationship between the two subs, though…” Spencer shook his head.
“Ethen O’Dowell…” Marcus muttered again, and this time, something in the distracted tone he used caught Spencer’s attention. “Why do I know that name?”
“He was pretty infamous in the news for a while.”
Marcus swore. “I think I talked to that guy. Was he a lawyer?”
Straightening in his chair, Spencer’s attention locked on the phone call. “You talked to him?”
“If it’s the guy I’m thinking of, then yeah. He came up to me after a class I was teaching on the power of control and suggestion in BDSM relationships. Jesus, he wanted… something about deepening his command over his sub. But the things he was talking about…” Marcus trailed off, swearing softly again.
“What did you tell him?”
“Hell, I don’t remember what he asked anymore. It’s been a couple years. I just remember some of what he wanted to do was reminiscent of cult-like brainwashing.”
His gut sinking, Spencer said, “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve spent my life trying to undo the damage guys like him inflict on other people. No way in hell would I ever tell someone how to do that shit.”
“Well, he figured it out somewhere.” Spencer rubbed his face again. “Now I have to figure out how to undo it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do,” Spencer snapped back, as annoyed with himself as he had been at Carlson earlier for voicing the same stupid thing. “It happened in my club, right under my nose. Not once, or twice, but four times. Four submissives were hurt in my house, under my watch.”
Marcus’s slow, heavy exhale ended in a growl. “Give me a couple days. I’ll make some phone calls and see who in the field might be willing to take this on.”
“Thanks, man.” Ending the call, Spencer dropped his cellphone on the desk. Frowning, he glared at the wall, but he already knew. If Marcus came up empty-handed, he was prepared to take on Pony in himself, at least long enough to find her a more suitable Dom. He had no idea what he was going to do or how even to broach the subject with Klara. Hell, he didn’t even want Pony.
But someone had to be responsible for undoing Ethen’s damage.
And Black Light was his house.
Chapter 16
Cynthia’s hands shook. She tugged at the hem of her blouse, fidgeting with the buttons to make sure they were straight, checking her collar, checking her hair. Checking the new fake nails that, just like her clothes, Carlson had paid for. The thick, blunt, rounded ends made it impossible to pick at herself when she was nervous. Which was good, otherwise she was pretty sure she’d have bled all over herself by now.
“You look good, honey,” Carlson said from the driver’s side of his car, the corner of his mouth curling in a smile.
Blowing out a pent in breath, Cynthia nodded. “Don’t you think I need more practice?”
“Nope,” he said with the kind of confidence she envied all the way to her soul. “You know this backwards and forwards. You’ve been doing this all week with Spencer and we went over the questions twice last night and once this morning.”
“But what if I fail?”
“Then you turn in another application somewhere else and start over. It’s not the end of the world. But you’re qualified for this job, and I think you’ve got a good chance of getting it.”
She rubbed her stomach as he pulled into the library parking lot.
“Ah,” he said, and she quickly dropped her hands to her lap, but as much to keep from ruining her clothes as to obey his wordless censure. She clasped her hands instead, squeezing at her fingers as if squeezing hard enough might keep her burgeoning nerves from overtaking her.
“You’ve got this,” he said, again with all the confidence she just didn’t have.
He seemed to say that to her all the time these days. Somewhere along the way, he had become her rock. She couldn’t imagine where she would be right now without him, but she knew it wouldn’t have been here, in the parking lot in front of this intimidating building, about to do the most frightening thing in the world.
“I’ve got this,” she repeated, more for his benefit because she didn’t believe it for a second. She even forced herself to smile as she got out of the car. “Please don’t leave me here, okay?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, and she would love him forever for never once making fun of her insecurities.
Shutting the passenger door, she whispered, “I’ve got this,” as she trudged up the library steps and through the sliding doors. What should have been polite quiet felt more like eeriness as she walked inside. The temptation to find a secluded hiding spot to lurk for a while nibbled at her. Who was going to know or care if she walked right back out of here without talking to anyone?
The one person she would have to lie to before he drove her home, and already she knew she wouldn’t do that. Not because that thin switch-like Delran would be waiting for her by the time they got home, but because she’d promised never again and it was a promise she meant to keep.
Walking up to the front desk felt dream-like, a weird mix of déjà vu and determination. Her legs remembered shaking and as she approached the college-aged brunette at the checkout counter, they shook just as badly now.
“Are you here for the interview?” the young woman asked, looking up from her computer with a friendly smile.
She nodded. She’d practiced for this. She could do this. In the back of her head, Carlson’s encouragement echoed alongside the scary pulse of her quickening heartbeat.
“Over there.”
Cynthia followed her pointing finger to a tiny reading alcove across the main room.
“You’ve got one waiting ahead of you,” the librarian said. “Miss Halstead will be with you as soon as she can.”
Cynthia walked as steadily as she could, past a bank of public computers and a section devoted to tax forms, and joined the other woman already waiting on one of four blue padded chairs in the reading nook. The other woman was younger. Prettier too, and she looked every bit as professional as Cynthia didn’t feel. It was a whole lot easier to picture her working up at the checkout counter, then it was to see herself there. Feeling like a fraud, she eased into the farthest seat and stubbornly repeated Carlson’s favorite mantra in her head: You can do this… you can do this…
Somewhere between sitting down and senior librarian briefly emerging to call the other woman into the interview room, that mantra changed to there’s no way you can do this.
She pressed her sweaty palms flat against her thighs. My name is Cynthia Reynolds. My qualifications are…
Old, her subconscious interjected, out of date and completely irrelevant.
She was stupid. She was slow. She was scared.
A young man in
a grey suit and red tie came to sit beside her. He lay his briefcase on the floor next to him, gave her a nodding smile, and settled in to wait.
She was completely inadequate next to him. She was probably completely inadequate compared to the other woman too, and anyone else lined up to interview for this job.
Stop it. She could do this.
There was no way in hell she could do this. What was she thinking?
If she got up right now, and ran for the door she could avoid the complete embarrassment that would surely happen when she got pulled into that office and exposed herself as completely messed up.
“Puppy?” a woman called, startling Cynthia and making her stomach drop straight through the chair to the floor. She hadn’t even noticed the senior librarian standing once more in the mouth of the nook or the other young woman walking confidently toward the door.
She could do this. She could do—
She couldn’t do this!
Hand pressed to her stomach, she got up and followed the older woman into the interview room. It was a small office with a single conference table and six padded chairs set up around it.
Tucking her skirt, Miss Halstead sat. She gestured for Cynthia to take the chair beside her, but too late. She had already found a chair that put as much table as possible between them. Face burning, she immediately tried to correct her mistake, but she could feel herself spiraling into a tailspin of pure anxiety.
She could do this.
But she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t… It throbbed at her temple, steady as a heartbeat, and her palms felt horribly damp.
“Sorry,” she whispered, when the librarian tried to shake hands. She quickly wiped them on her thighs first.
“You have a very interesting application,” Miss Halstead began, looking at what seemed to be Cynthia’s application. “There’s no last name. Is Puppy a nickname?”
“My name is Cynthia Reynolds,” she managed, wiping her hands again.
She felt sick. She swallowed convulsively, fighting not to throw up.