“Once a day? Who’s the lucky recipient of that honor?”
“Trust me, you don’t have time for the list of people I play with. I’ve probably fucked every submissive in Manhattan. I may have to move to Brooklyn.”
“Only submissives?”
“Only submissives.”
“That’s unusual for you, isn’t it?” Søren crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Kingsley.
“Why? Because I bottomed for you, I have to do it for the rest of the world?”
“Not the rest of the world. One person at least. I remember.”
“What do you remember?”
“How much you needed it, wanted it.”
“I needed you, not it.”
“You loved submitting to pain. Why the change?”
“I don’t bottom anymore. Fin,” Kingsley said. “The end.”
Søren studied Kingsley’s face as if looking at an alien specimen.
“Are you going to teach me the whip trick or not?” Kingsley demanded.
“I will, but this conversation isn’t over yet, whether you fin-ed it or not.”
“Show me the trick.”
“There’s no trick to it,” Søren said as he scanned the rows of single-tails on the wall. He took one down, pulled it taut, coiled it again and hung it back on the wall. A second singletail whip proved more to his liking. “It takes a great deal of practice. And I’m not the teacher Magdalena is. She could have you f lipping quarters in midair with a single-tail in two weeks.”
“Then why isn’t she teaching me?”
“She’s in Rome. Have you used a whip before?”
“On the back—large target.”
“Then you’ll need to practice on a smaller target. Not a person.” Søren had one of Kingsley’s business cards in his hand. He stabbed it over a hook on the wall.
“You want me to hit that?” Kingsley asked. “A business card?”
Søren put his hand on the center of Kingsley’s chest and pushed him back…back…back until he was against the wall.
“No,” Søren said. “I’m going to hit it. You’re going to watch. From a safe distance.”
Søren stepped away, coiled the whip, put his right foot before his left foot and then released the whip with a quick snap. With the tip of the whip, Søren cut the business card neatly in half.
Kingsley applauded as he walked up to the card. The cut sliced the card right down the middle between the word Edge and Enterprises.
“Such a good trick,” he said, impressed.
“Whips are multipurpose,” Søren said. “Good for pain. Good for bondage.”
“Bondage?” Kingsley asked, reaching for the card.
Søren lightly f lung the whip at him. It wrapped around Kingsley’s wrist. He laughed even as it tightened, and Søren tugged on it, pulling him closer.
“Nice,” Kingsley said, his breath quickening. “What else?”
“Wrists,” Søren said, taking Kingsley’s other wrist and wrapping the supple leather whip around his hands. “Ankles even. The neck, too, but you have to be careful. Do you want to see Magdalena’s favorite trick?”
“Show me.”
Søren had left an eight-inch length of whip between Kingsley’s right wrist and left wrist. He spun Kingsley around quickly and pulled his back to Søren’s chest, bringing the whip hard against Kingsley’s throat.
The world fell out from under Kingsley.
He blinked, and the walls turned to black, the temperature dropped and when he breathed in he smelled sulfur.
He dropped to his knees and yanked at the chain around his neck. If he could get his fingers between the chain and his throat he had a chance. The air went out of the room. He could hear nothing, see nothing. But he could feel, and what he felt was a wet-hole cavern in his chest, bone shattering and a lung collapsing.
No air. None. No matter how he gasped, how he gulped, how he fought, he could get no air.
Someone spoke…Slovakian? Ukrainian? He couldn’t tell. The voice was too far away…and it didn’t matter.
He was dying.
He was dying.
A bullet in his chest. A chain around his neck.
He was dead.
“Kingsley.”
He heard his name but didn’t respond. Dead men don’t scream.
“Kingsley, you’re in Manhattan. You’re home.”
He wasn’t home. He was bleeding to death on a shit-stained basement f loor in Ljubljana.
“You’re alive.”
No, he wasn’t.
“Open your eyes. Can you hear me?”
He heard something in his ears. A popping. It startled him. He jumped. His eyes f lew open. The world was a haze. But he did see something, a gray light.
“You have to breathe.”
He heard something other than the voice. A deep loud gasping wheeze. Over and over again.
Kingsley felt something on his back, a hand hitting him hard. It should have scared him, but instead the pain and the rhythm brought him back to himself.
“Kingsley, talk to me,” the voice ordered. It was Søren. His voice. His hand.
“I’m fine,” Kingsley said.
“Stop lying to me. You aren’t fine.”
Kingsley looked down. He sat on the f loor of his playroom, his back to the wall. His shirt was sticky with sweat and his throat raw from wheezing.
“I’m fine,” he said again.
“Was that a panic attack?” Søren asked, crouching in front of him. “Or a f lashback?”
“It was nothing.” Kingsley’s body was tense. His hands shook. “I think I spaced out for a second.”
“Two minutes,” Søren said. “Not one second.”
Kingsley tried to stand, but Søren put his hand on Kingsley’s shoulder and held him in place.
“Stay down. Look at me.”
“I don’t want to look at you,” Kingsley said.
“I don’t care. Look at me.” Søren took Kingsley by the chin, forcing the eye contact. “Tell me where you were.”
“Slovenia.”
“Why?”
“I was shot there.”
“Is that all that happened?”
“I think so.”
He glanced away. It hurt to be looked at like this, with such concern and pity. That wasn’t how he wanted Søren to look at him. He wanted Søren to look at him with lust and desire and want and hunger.
He tried to stand up again, but Søren still wouldn’t let him.
“I touched your throat with the whip, and you started wheezing like you were actually choking,” Søren said. “You fell to your knees and wouldn’t speak.”
“I’m fine,” Kingsley said for the third and final time.
Søren sighed and pushed a damp lock of hair off Kingsley’s forehead.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Søren said, his tone almost, but not quite, apologetic.
“You didn’t scare me. I’m not scared.” His racing heart, his churning stomach made a liar of him.
“Well, this answers my question.”
“What question?” Kingsley asked, dropping his head. He didn’t want to look in Søren’s eyes. He saw fear in them, not of Kingsley but for Kingsley. And something told him Søren wouldn’t be touching him again for a very long time.
If ever.
“Now I know why you don’t let anyone hurt you anymore.”
Kingsley looked up at Søren from the f loor.
“Get out of my house,” Kingsley said.
“Kingsley?”
“You said I don’t owe you anything. Get the fuck out of my house.”
Søren got the fuck out.
10
SEVEN DAYS AND SEVEN NIGHTS PASSED, AND SØREN didn’t come back to Kingsley’s house. He didn’t call, didn’t write, didn’t visit and didn’t once tell Kingsley he needed to get help. He was gone, gone, gone, and that was fine, fine, fine with Kingsley.
Except it wasn’t. Because Søren had promised never to
leave him again. And he had.
Promises, promises.
Kingsley took another swig from the bottle of bourbon, coughed a little, and laid back on the chaise longue. He crossed his feet at the ankles and watched the light from the swimming pool dance across the ceiling. He had no idea why he still had the pool down here. No one ever swam in it. He kept the doors locked to prevent any of his inebriated houseguests from turning up facedown in it by accident. A bad sign when the only person who got anything out of the swimming pool was the pool boy. And even he wasn’t attractive enough for Kingsley to bother seducing.
But tonight he wanted to lie by the water while he drank. It was peaceful here. The pool wasn’t large or deep—ten by twenty feet across and four feet to the bottom. The f loor was Mediterranean tile, and red, yellow and gold murals of northern Italy covered the walls. The paintings reminded him of a little village in the south of France he and his family had gone to every August when he was a child. A village right on the Mediterranean. Beautiful place, restful. Water, hills, vineyards. A vintner’s wife had seduced him there when he was twentytwo and hiding out while he recovered from his first gunshot wound. He had nothing but fond memories of the place. Being near water soothed his soul. If he had a soul. Did he have one? Didn’t matter if he did or not. He and God weren’t on speaking terms right now. And that was fine. Kingsley didn’t mind. What did he and God have to talk about anyway? The only thing he wanted to ask God was why He’d called Søren to the priesthood. Could God have played a sicker joke on him?
“Knock, knock?”
Kingsley sighed. Blaise’s gentle voice came from the door. He waved his arm tiredly at her, beckoning her in.
“He’s not here,” Kingsley said.
“I wasn’t looking for him, I promise,” Blaise said.
“Are you swimming?”
“And mess up my hair?” She tossed her honey-blond hair over her shoulder. “No, I’m checking on you.”
Blaise crawled up on the chaise longue next to him. Kingsley looked her up and down as she settled in next to him.
“You’ve outdone yourself with this ensemble,” he said. “You look like… What’s her name? That pretty blonde actress. The dead one with the hair. River? Ocean? Pool?”
“Veronica Lake. And that’s what I was going for. See?” She held up her leg to display her seamed stockings that disappeared under her pencil skirt. She had her hair coiffed in a forties peekaboo style.
“Why do you dress like this?” he asked. Every day she wore some new vintage outfit that put one in mind of old Hollywood.
“The world is sadly lacking in glamour. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And not all of us are as naturally gorgeous and eye-catching as you are, King,” she said, tapping the end of his nose. “Some of us have to work for it.”
“You like the attention. You’re the girl in the room who dresses like she forgot what decade she’s in.”
“I’m trying to forget what decade I’m in. The nineties need to shape up fast. You know what people are wearing now? On purpose? Flannel. I saw it on MTV.”
“I shudder.”
“Me, too. Awful. There is nothing glamorous about f lannel.”
“You don’t dress like this to be glamorous. You dress to be remembered.”
“So? What’s wrong with being memorable? Even if someone forgets my name, they still remember the girl in the seamed stockings.”
“Nothing’s wrong with being memorable. Except when someone’s trying to forget you.”
Blaise sighed and laid her head on his chest.
“I knew you were in a funk,” she said. “You always get like this when you drink.”
“I drink all the time.”
“You’re in a funk all the time. I thought it would get better when your friend turned up. Where is Søren anyway?”
“I pissed him off. He left.”
“Well, un-piss him off. I like him.”
“The last thing we need is a priest hanging around this house.”
Blaise’s mouth fell open.
“He’s really a priest? That wasn’t a joke?”
“I wish.”
Blaise laughed so hard the chaise longue shook.
“I can’t believe I did kink with a priest. I can’t wait to tell—”
Faster than either of them expected, Kingsley rolled up, grabbed Blaise and put her f lat on her back underneath him. He grasped both her wrists and slammed them down by her head.
“King—”
“Shut up. I mean it.” He tightened his grip on her to the point of pain and stayed there. “Not a word to anyone that you did anything with a priest. Do you understand me?”
Blaise looked up at him in fear—real fear.
“Fuck, fine. I won’t tell anyone.”
“You’ve never seen me this serious before, have you?”
Blaise shook her head. “No.”
“There’s a reason for that. You will tell no one.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “I swear.”
Kingsley held her down another few seconds, long enough to make her nervous and long enough to get him aroused.
“Good girl.” He bent his head and kissed her before letting her go.
He rolled on to his back again, crossed his legs at his ankles again, watched the light dance again.
Blaise sat up and looked down at him.
“You scared the shit out of me.” She put her hand over her heart.
“Good.”
“For someone who says he doesn’t like Søren, you’re awfully protective of him.”
“Love him or hate, he’s one of us. We take care of our own.”
“I can’t get him in trouble, you know. I only know his f irst name.”
“Actually, you don’t.” Kingsley laughed to himself. Søren had introduced himself as “Søren” to Blaise, not Marcus Stearns. There was no “Søren” on anyone’s records anywhere. If she tried to find a Catholic priest in the United States named Søren, she’d be searching forever. So that’s why Søren told her his real name? That
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