“Don’t laugh, but I meditate.” Cyrus glanced at her to see what kind of face she made. She didn’t make one. “The therapist Paulina sent me to suggested it, made me promise to try it. I did and it kind of surprised me how much it worked for me. It got me down into deep places in my head,” he said, tapping his temple. “When I’m down there, I see things sometimes. I figure things out. It’s hard to explain.”
“Go on,” she said. “What do you see?”
“A river,” he said. “And there are things in the river. Answers to questions. Memories. Truths. I go there when I need to figure things out and sometimes I do and it’s eerie. Almost spooky. Solved a lot of cases down in that place, my feet in the water. Husband who disappeared three months earlier, I figured out where to find him. Missing kid? Found her, too, while I was in the water.”
“Our subconscious is a lot smarter than we are sometimes.”
“I get that, but it’s more than that. This is where it gets weird. The river feels real to me. Like it’s really out there somewhere, and anybody who finds it can dip their hands in it, stick their feet in, and get something out of the water. My therapist says I’m a Jungian. That the river is the collective unconscious. You heard of that?”
“I have,” she said. “Lot of writers believe in it.”
“You?”
She shrugged. “Never thought about it really. But I will say, sometimes when I’m writing a story, it feels like it exists independently of me, not like I’m creating it. More like I’m finding it.”
“That’s it,” he said. “That’s it exactly.”
She turned her head, smiled at him. “A Jungian private detective. I love it.”
“Now I can’t go around wading in imaginary rivers to solve cases and then get judgmental when a woman says she can cast spells and see the future. That’d be a little hypocritical, right?”
“Right.” Nora nodded, crossed her arms over her chest.
“You?” he asked. “You believe in it? Witches? Witchcraft?”
Nora turned her head, stared out the passenger window. “When she was leaving, I told her if she thought I was really dangerous, she should just go and cast a spell to make me do whatever it was she wanted me to do. She said something about how she could go to an altar at midnight, light a candle, say some magic words. Does that sound like casting a spell to you?”
“Kind of.”
“She was talking about me. I went to St. Mary’s chapel the other night to pray for Søren to come home. Altar at midnight. I lit a candle. I said magic words.”
“That’s not casting a spell. That’s praying.”
“Is it really that different? Never occurred to me that it was all the same thing.”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
Cyrus had to think about that, too. This was something he would have to meditate on.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “Just feels different.”
“You don’t really think Catholics are the only people who get access to the spiritual forces in the universe, do you?”
“Well, no.”
“Jews and Muslims and Baptists and Methodists and Sikhs and Hindus and Buddhists do, too, right?”
“I think so. Not that I advertise it around my grandmother.”
Nora smiled. “Why not witches, then? If we think our prayers work, why don’t we think theirs do, too, just because they call them ‘spells’?”
“You ask a good question,” he said. “You scared of her?”
“Not of her. Just…something she said.”
“Something else?”
Nora slowly nodded. Then she turned his way again. “She said something about me and Søren.”
“What did she say?”
“That I would leave him.”
Cyrus rolled his eyes. “Real or not, you have free will,” he said. “You don’t want to leave him…you don’t leave him. That’s all you. Nobody can make you if you don’t want to.”
“True,” she said. “I hope.”
They arrived at Nora’s dungeon. Cyrus made her stay in the car while he walked around the building. Then he nodded for her to get out of the car. She and Gmork—what kind of damn name for a dog was Gmork?—strode quickly over to the door. Nora punched in the security code and they went inside. Nora reset the door alarm.
“Guess we’re safe for now,” she said.
“Famous last words.”
She glared at him.
“Just saying,” he said. “Give me your keys. I’m going up first. Don’t come up until I text you.”
“You’re being very chivalrous.”
“I’m being a damn fool is what I’m being,” he said as he went to the door to the stairs.
“You could take the elevator,” she said.
“I’ve seen too many horror movies.”
“People get killed on the stairs in horror movies, too.”
Cyrus gave her the dirtiest look he could muster.
“That was payback,” she said, “for the ‘famous last words’ comment.”
“Just stay here with your stupid dog.”
He went up the stairs, his pulse quickening. Nobody waiting around the bend. Thank God. He reached the third floor and unlocked her door. After a deep inhale and exhale, he gave it a small push. The lights were off inside, but he heard nothing, sensed nothing. He pulled the door shut. He’d wait for her to continue his sweep—he didn’t want to leave her alone for too long downstairs. He texted her the all-clear.
Nora joined him on the third-floor foyer, and took Gmork off his leash. She gave a forceful command. The dog’s ears perked up. His demeanor changed in an instant from that of a pet to a protector. He went straight to the closed door and sat, whimpering. Nora let him inside.
“What’s he doing?” Cyrus asked, craning his neck to get a peek inside.
“Bomb-sniffing. Just in case.”
“He’s trained for that?”
“Trained for everything. If someone was hiding, he’d sniff them out, too. I think. That’s what they told me anyway. He doesn’t get much chance to practice his fancy tricks with me. Believe it or not, I don’t get too many kooks following me around.”
“You’re a dominatrix dating a priest and a French farmer. You got a dog that worships you on command. You got a witch stalking you. You have your own dungeon on the third floor of a bank building. Lady, I hate to tell you this...but you are one of the kooks.”
“That would hurt,” Nora said as she shook off her black leather jacket, “except it’s true.”
Gmork returned to her, and she went inside and switched on the lights. She held the door open for Cyrus.
“Holy shit,” he said.
“Welcome to my dungeon,” Nora said, smiling. “Like it?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cyrus blinked, blinked again, turned a slow circle. The walls of the room were blood-red. Hanging from what seemed like a thousand hooks was every kind of torture instrument he’d ever heard of and a few he now wished he’d never seen.
Floggers and whips, ropes and canes. But also lots of weird-looking metal objects and sitting in various spots on the floor like demonic gym equipment was a big metal cage, a medical table with leather straps hanging off it, and some kind of crazy-ass wooden throne with steel hooks in it.
“When you said this was a dungeon…you meant it.”
Nora laughed as she put the tea things from their talk with Doc into a sink on the far wall. A sink? Yeah. A sink. Right next to a toilet. Not a bathroom. Just the toilet.
“I don’t want to know,” he said, pointing at the toilet.
“Puppy play,” Nora said. “Dogs drink out of toilets. I make my puppies drink from the toilet. Nobody ever uses it as, you know, a toilet.”
“Puppies?”
“Human puppies. Men who like being treated like dogs.” Nora opened the cabinet door under the sink and took out a small bottle of Dawn.
“And the sink?”
/> “For washing up stuff,” she said. “All this equipment touches human bodies. You don’t want to spread infections or anything. This room used to be the company’s break room. Sink, counter, coffee machine, half bath. I had everything taken out except for the sink and toilet.”
“I just don’t even know what to say,” Cyrus said.
“You don’t have to say anything. Promise. Make yourself at home. Watch what you touch, though. Some of the equipment is dangerous.”
“You don’t say.”
While Nora washed her dishes, Cyrus roamed the room, trying to make himself as narrow as possible to avoid brushing up against something he didn’t want to brush up against.
So many whips. So many floggers. Enough rope to build a bridge from here to his apartment. He came to a stop in front of a red curtain, the old-fashioned kind like what they hung in front of movie screens. It even had golden tassels, the sort you pulled to raise the curtain.
“Do I want to know what’s behind the curtain?” Cyrus asked.
“My bed,” she said.
“Just a bed? Like a normal bed?”
“Normal bed. I’ve been known to nap between sessions with clients.”
“Oh,” Cyrus said. “Makes sense.”
“It’s also for Sheridan.”
“Who’s that?”
“My little girl sub. She’s not into dungeons. Prefers being beaten and fucked on beds. Spoiled little brat.”
Cyrus glanced over at Nora, thinking she was yanking his chain. No. Not chain-yanking. She was, in fact, drying the dishes.
“I also keep the scary stuff in there under lock and key,” she said.
“The scary stuff?” He glanced around the room again at the cages and whips. “You’re saying this isn’t the scary stuff? How much does this shit cost you?”
Nora turned her back to him, lifted the bottom of her t-shirt a few inches. Cyrus could just see the tail end of a red welt at the bottom of her ribcage.
“Damn.”
“Belt,” she said. “Basic black leather, fifty dollars. All he used on me. His own belt in a hotel room. No dungeon necessary.”
“And you really, actually, swear-to-God liked that? If not, I may have to settle things with him.”
“I really, actually, swear-to-God loved it. Don’t beat up my dominant, please. But if you do, I’d appreciate it if you left his pretty face alone.”
He studied a wall of canes but didn’t touch any. This wasn’t fuzzy handcuffs and silk blindfolds sort of stuff. This was the real deal.
“Tell me something,” he said, glancing around, eyes wide, “how do you get into this? I mean…this is a lot.”
“Everybody finds their way to kink by a different path. I know dominatrixes who learned the trade from their own mothers. I know male submissives who just got curious one day, Googled BDSM clubs, and fell down the rabbit-hole.”
“What about you?”
She smiled. “Mine’s a pretty common story. You fall in love with someone already kinky—Søren, in my case—and you discover you’re as into it as they are. Kink is often sexually-transmitted.”
“He just up and said, ‘Hey, I know I’m your priest, but I’m also kinky as hell. Wanna play?’”
“He actually kept it a secret from me for a long time. He’s…he’s a little more kinky than your average kinky guy. Pain’s his fetish. If there’s no pain, there’s no sex. That’s a hard thing to tell the girl you’re in love with.”
“You mean it’s kink 24/7/365?” he asked. “And he’s always the one calling the shots?”
She nodded. “Always. No days off.”
“But you’re into calling the shots, too.” He reached out and stroked the tails of one of the floggers on the wall. It was shockingly soft, suede probably. “Doesn’t it get old? Him being in charge all the time?”
“It is what it is. If you fall in love with a foot fetishist, you have to accept a lifetime of high heels and weekly pedicures.”
“So it does get old?” He knew when a witness wasn’t telling him the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She took a seat on a big black throne-sort of contraption, a throne with D-rings screwed into it. She crossed her legs and sat back, looking almost like a real queen.
“I’ll admit to having the occasional fantasy about topping him. But it’s about the same as dreaming about what you’d do with the lottery money you’re never going to win. I get all my topping out of my system in here. And there,” she said, pointing at the curtained bedroom. “And in France.”
“Yeah, yeah, with your ‘other’ lover.”
“Now you’re catching on.” She smiled tiredly. He only looked at her. Nothing got a suspect talking faster than silence. “It doesn’t get old, being with him. It never gets old. Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Søren is the most powerful man I know. Therefore and ergo, Søren is the ultimate aphrodisiac. But…just once might be nice. There. You got me to confess. Now your turn.”
“No.”
“You acted very strange the day we met when I mentioned the word ‘Daddy.’ Why?”
“No,” he said. “No way. I am not having this conversation with you.”
“You’re in my dungeon now. My dungeon. My rules. We’re having this conversation. You brought it up.”
He glared at her.
“Who called you ‘Daddy’? Ex-girlfriend. Ex-wife? First lover? Tell me. The Mistress is listening…” She put her hand to her ear and leaned in.
He exhaled, hard and heavy, but he said it anyway. “Paulina.”
Nora’s eyebrow raised half an inch. “Really?”
Cyrus nodded.
“You like that?”
Cyrus nodded again.
“Nice,” Nora said.
“You think she’s kinky?” he asked.
“Because she calls you ‘Daddy’? Maybe. Maybe just a pet name. Now if she calls you ‘Dad’…that’s definitely kinky.”
“What happened to you as a child?”
“Nothing,” Nora said with a shrug. “Totally normal childhood. I mean, other than getting arrested for grand-theft auto, my Catholic priest falling in love with me when I was fifteen, and my father getting whacked by the mob. Why do you ask?”
Cyrus groaned and rubbed his forehead. There was a lot that needed unpacking in what Nora just said. He decided to leave it packed.
“Do you think she’s kinky?” Nora asked, sounding suddenly—and eerily—like Cyrus’s therapist.
He looked for a place to sit. Nothing except for the medical bed. Ah, hell. Why not?
“Her father is career Navy,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and letting his feet dangle. He felt like a kid again about to get a tetanus shot. “He runs the house like he’s captain of a ship. Everything on schedule. Everything in its place. Everybody behaves and does their job. No backtalk. No tears. Paulina never called him ‘Dad’ or ‘Daddy.’ She always called him ‘Sir.’ Still does. She says he’s gotten more affectionate as he’s gotten older, but he’s still more ‘Sir’ to her than ‘Dad.’”
“That’s gotta be tough.”
“She loves her father. Respects the hell out of him. But yeah, not a lot of hugging and kissing and laughing and goofing together. She says she calls me ‘Daddy’ because I make her feel safe and loved and, you know, we’re goofs together. Always laughing. I don’t know if I’ve ever even heard her father laugh. I think that’s all it is. She just, you know, that word to her means ‘the man who loves me, takes care of me, and we play together.’”
“Does she call you ‘Daddy’ in bed?”
Cyrus barked a laugh. He didn’t mean to. It just came out.
“What?” Nora asked. “That was a weird reaction.”
“Nothing.”
“Something,” she said. “Come on. Tell me. If it helps…I’ve called Søren ‘Daddy’ during sex before.”
He should have said, I don’t need to hear this, Nora. What he did say was, “Really?”
“One of those fantasies yo
u think you want to try out, and then you do and it’s so intense and awkward that you can barely handle it.”
“You couldn’t handle it?”
“I cried,” she said. “It was…” she paused and exhaled. “Intense. Intense and humiliating. And sexy. That’s where kink gets so complicated. That you hate it and love it at the same time.”
“Sounds intense,” Cyrus said. “Maybe too intense for me.”
“It’s okay. Paulina might not have any Daddy-kink in her at all. That’s why I asked if she did it in bed or just whenever. ‘Fuck me harder, Daddy’ is a slightly different scenario than ‘Pass the ketchup, Daddy.’”
Cyrus needed a few seconds to process all that. Finally, he said, “I don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“We, ah…” He took another few seconds, tried to figure out if he could say what he wanted to say. If he should say what he wanted to say. Then he just said it. “We’ve never had sex.”
Nora’s eyes nearly fell out of her head.
“Are you serious?”
“We’re waiting until our wedding night.”
“Holy…I knew she was Catholic but that’s…that’s too Catholic is what that is.”
Cyrus dropped his chin to his chest and shook his head.
“You are telling me, Mistress.”
“Oh God, poor you.”
“No, no.” He raised his head and exhaled. “It was my suggestion.”
“Were you on drugs?”
“Love,” he said. “Dumb stupid love.”
“That was my other guess.”
“I wanted her to know that I was in this for her, not using her for sex. You know, like I had with every other woman in my life since I was sixteen years old.”
“So offering to wait until you were married was a romantic gesture?”
“Right.”
“And you and Paulina have been dating how long?”
“Two years.”
“So you haven’t had sex in…”
“Over two years.”
Nora put the fingers of both hands on her temples, like her head was about to explode and she needed to contain the blast.
“I’ve never wanted to slap a man so hard in my life. I mean, a man who wasn’t Søren.”
Cyrus tilted his head to the side, offering her his cheek.
The Priest: An Original Sinners Novel Page 19