“Hey, slim shady, why don’t you take off the glasses?”
Like a deer in the headlights, freeze frame, she stops. She doesn’t argue or prepare me for what’s underneath. Her face looks like raw hamburger meat. It’s bruised, swollen, red, black, and brown, with horrible tinges of yellow surrounding it. Her eye is completely shut, the lid puffy like a cherry tomato. I count at least six stitches just underneath her eyebrow covered in shiny goo of some sort, likely antibiotic gel.
“Holy fuck, Sera!” I rush to her and grab her arm. I’m met with a cast hidden by her oversized sweatshirt. The anger boiling to the surface is almost insurmountable. I force myself to acknowledge she came here for comfort, not a lecture. My hand seizes the broom from her, and I say, “Have a seat. Let me clean this up and I’ll get you some coffee or tea. Are you hungry?”
“Some tea would be nice. The pain medicine has pretty much killed my appetite.”
I collect my thoughts in the kitchen while I make her tea. It gives me a couple minutes to reign my anger back in. The last thing I need to do is yell at her for allowing anything like this to happen again.
Taking a seat in the chair across from her, I prop my elbows up on the arms, cross my legs, and attempt to appear calm and casual, as if this is the type of conversation I have daily with my friends.
“When did it happen?” I ask, sipping on my own tea.
Her voice is heavy with despair when she finally speaks. “Last night. I just left the hospital and came here. I called my mom, but she didn’t answer, and she likely won’t return my call. I knew I’d find you. Do you need to let Zane know I’m here?”
Sucker punch to the gut. I know she didn’t mean it to be, but fuck, talk about emasculating. In her mind, she’s being respectful of what I’m doing, but in my perception, she just handed me my balls and stuffed my testosterone up my ass.
Groaning, I dig my cell out of my pocket. I haven’t been in touch with him since I left Stone Ground this morning. He doesn’t know about Nate, either. I chose to leave that part out. I type out a quick message to let him know Sera stopped by and is hanging out for a bit. I know it’s a mistake not to ask if it’s okay, but it really doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t. She’s not leaving until she’s ready to, so I don’t bother. She waits patiently, a soft smile gracing her lips. I wonder how she can smile about anything when she’s apparently been through hell and back in the last twenty-four hours.
I don’t immediately hear back from Zane, thank God.
“How’s that going?”
“Frustrating.” My facial expression says more than I should’ve allowed her to see.
“Not what you thought it would be?”
“None of it surprises me, but I’m not sure how well it’s working out. It’s starting to affect my creativity. I don’t do well with strict structure. When the urge to paint comes, I stop what I’m doing and paint. Having to report to someone twenty-four-seven stifles that.”
“Do you feel like you’re learning a lot?” Her genuine interest reminds me why I started this in the first place.
“I get that he’s instilling discipline and wanting me to understand the role a sub would have under me and the responsibilities a Dom has, but there are parts of my life he’s not taking into account. I’m trying to work through it and around it…but who knows. I can’t sacrifice my hands for my heart.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I can’t give in to everything he wants me to do if in essence I’m losing who I am. If I tie my hands, I can’t paint. In turn, I’m losing my heart, my love, passion. Blocking my creativity is effectively tying my hands.”
“How’s the process hurting your creativity?
“Stopping everything I’m doing to ask permission; it’s demoralizing. It makes me feel like less of a man. It isn’t building my confidence. It’s stripping it away.”
“I see.” I don’t think she does, but whatever. This isn’t about me.
I wave my hand around, magically clearing the subject, mentally erasing the topic at hand, at least in my mind. She giggles at me.
In the most sympathetic voice I can muster, I ask, “What happened, Sera?”
“It was an accident.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
She shakes her head no. “It won’t help anything. It won’t change how you feel about it or what you think about it. It will just put a name with a couple accidents.”
“Do you really believe these are accidents? That normal people routinely end up with this type of damage? A cast and stitches is not typical lover repercussions.”
“I don’t live a typical lover lifestyle, either.”
“I’m not going to fight with you. I’m not trying to make you unhappy. It hurts me to see you in pain. It makes me want to find the motherfucker and gouge his goddamn eyes out with a spoon. I want to keep you safe, Sera. Surely you understand that.”
Her little giggle gets louder erupting, in full-blown laughter.
“What are you laughing about?”
“You wouldn’t hurt a fly, Bastian. It’s just funny to hear you go all alpha-male, Billy bad ass.”
I absolutely would try to bring this fucker to his knees for touching her in a harmful way, but her words just shoot right through me. Nothing I’ve done has had any impact on her perception of who I am. I’m still just as weak to her as I was the day we met. I can’t deny how much it hurts. Acknowledging putting up with the shit from Zane in an effort to transform, it has done nothing to change who I am in her eyes. I’m no closer to her accepting me into her world than I’ve ever been. The only difference is I’ve now spent a few thousand dollars to have to answer to someone, have a personal trainer who irritates the shit out of me, and feel like a child all over again. Fucking great.
“I’m not as innocent as you seem to believe I am, Sera. I’m very protective, extremely passionate, and fiercely loyal. It might just be wrapped up in a package you aren’t used to seeing.”
She pulls her face back as if to say, “Well!”
I wasn’t trying to put her in her place, but she doesn’t know the real me. She knows the recovering version of me. She knows the written-for-television version of me, the CliffsNotes edition, but not me. I haven’t been around in six years, so she hasn’t seen the healthy me, the full-length version, the extended edition. She only sees broken, mending Bastian. It hits me like a ton of bricks—I don’t need some mentor, I need to pull my head out of my ass and remember my roots and who I am, where I came from, the person I loved being. That person may not have been your typical asshole, dominant male, but he was certainly self-assured, confident, fearless, and bold. Yes, I have an artistic flare, I’m a fucking artist, but I’m pure man and she hasn’t seen that.
“If you think I wouldn’t protect you at all costs, you don’t know me well. I’d do the same for Nate. That’s who I am.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just mean you don’t have any need to get all gruff and mean. You’re a nice guy and people like you.”
People like me.
Nice guy.
Kiss of fucking death with any woman, especially a woman who has a penchant for bad boys and an alternative lifestyle.
Fuck me.
She stays for several hours, just talking, sharing stories about nothing and everything, but she doesn’t impart any additional knowledge regarding what happened or who did it. She came for comfort, not pity. She wanted reassurance of normalcy and I’m assuming, a constant figure in her life.
I learned several things in our story-telling time, but I let them pass as though they were insignificant—the most intriguing being she and her mother almost never talk other than random posts on Facebook because her mother chose her own Dom over Sera. I only got bits of the story and didn’t want to call much attention to it, but her father passed away years ago, leaving her mom to raise her alone.
Shortly after Sera became interested in the lifestyle, she happened upon her mom’s
devotion to a Dom who didn’t care for Sera. Her mom chose the man. This happened around the same time Sera met her current Dominant. Ironically, she loses her mother to a bad man and finds shelter in the arms of a man just like the one for which her mother abandoned her. Sera didn’t put the story together like that, but that’s what I surmised after hearing her tales.
I learned more about Sera in the last four or five hours than I have in all the months we’ve known each other. Hearing some of these things, I wonder how she ever smiles. Sadness has filled her life from the time she was fairly young. She’s searching for something, too, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. I wonder if she thinks this deeply about me. Does she know my endless search is for love, happiness? I’m a hopeless romantic; I believe it’s out there. I found it once. Surely, a loving God wouldn’t make his people live life without finding that again, even if the journey is long. That shred of hope has kept me holding on for years—that and the fear of enduring more of the same shit on the next side.
I wonder if she realizes she’s as broken as I am, or if she knows what she’s chasing. Maybe she believes she’s truly happy and her glass is half full. I contemplate how staunchly the mind can deceive itself. We can mentally trick ourselves into believing our current state is the paragon of happiness. If Sera is lying to the outside world about her headspace, she’s doing a damn good job of it. If I didn’t see the physical evidence, I would never believe she led anything other than a good life. I worry about her safety, but she won’t let me get close enough to ascertain who the person is. Hell, she never even let me in to her house. The few times I’ve been over there it was simply to drop her off. She always comes here.
The thought of her hiding more is hard to swallow. I shouldn’t do it—I know I shouldn’t—but a few minutes after she leaves, I ride by her house to make sure she makes it safely. I don’t stop or try to see in the windows. The confirmation her car is in the driveway is all I needed. What I didn’t need was to see the shadow of another car in front of hers. Without stopping, I’m unable to make out much at all about the vehicle. It’s dark and with no outside lights on, all I can tell is it’s an SUV or maybe a mini-van. She doesn’t have roommates, so I can only assume he’s there.
My anxiety kicks into high gear. Pulling over a couple of blocks away, I regain my composure before making a stupid decision. Going back to her house would be an invasion of privacy. I have no reason to be there and wasn’t invited. Quite the opposite—she made a point to never have me inside. If he’s hurting her, and if I find out later I was here and did nothing, I will never be able to forgive myself. Without violating her privacy, I have no way of finding out.
Me: Let me know when you make it home.
Sera: I’m home. Everything ok?
Me: Yes, I was just worried about you driving with that arm all banged up
Sera: I’m good
It’s the most I can hope for. She had the opportunity to tell me if something was wrong, although I doubt she would. For whatever reason, there’s a part of her life she doesn’t want to share with me. As much as I would like to respect that, she’s shared just enough that I can’t allow her to shut me out.
23
The next morning, I drive by before going to Stone Ground—the car is missing and Sera’s car has replaced it. That, unfortunately, doesn’t mean much other than the person isn’t still there, but maybe they left five minutes before I drove up. I’m not sure what I thought driving by would accomplish, but it wasn’t really out of the way. I normally walk to Stone Ground, but today, I decided to drive. Truth being, I wanted an excuse to drive by Sera’s, and this grants me one.
Zane greets me at the door, quickly noticing I’m not ready to work out.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“Of course.”
I follow him back to his office. He shuts the door, affording us some privacy, although I’ve never seen anyone here this early in the morning.
Running my hand through my hair, I just let it out. There’s no sense in holding back or mincing words. “I want out. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Okay. Can you tell me why?” He’s as cool and calm as always.
“I understand what you’re trying to accomplish—teaching me structure, and discipline, and meeting needs isn’t always about me, and neither is being courteous and respectful. But it’s killing my creativity. As an artist, I roam freely. I work for days straight when the urge hits, not eating, barely moving from a canvas to take a piss. Stopping to go run for an hour in the morning kills that streak, or ensuring my phone is by my side all the time is a drain on me emotionally that sucks life out of me. I wanted to regain confidence, but that isn’t happening.”
“Funny, I see quite the opposite. You’re more poised. You clearly articulate what you want, how things are not working for you. You’ve never lost eye contact with me. You knew I was going to be disappointed, but you confronted it head-on with conviction that you needed to do something different. It’s exactly what I wanted from you and where I wanted you to go. The structure and discipline doesn’t have to be in your daily routine, it just needs to be who you are. If your discipline is painting, you need to be devoted to it. If your routine doesn’t include sleep, so be it. What I wanted was for you to be strong enough to come to me and tell me, to express your needs. Firmly plant your feet and draw a line in the sand. I’m very proud of how far you’ve come in a relatively short period of time.
“I’d like for you to take some time and think about where you’d like to go with this next, Bastian. I don’t think quitting is the answer. You just started. This is a process, one that doesn’t come easily. Reevaluating your needs and expectations regularly is critical to becoming who you want to be in anything you do. Come back on Monday. We don’t have to go run, and let’s talk about where you’d like to see this go. We’ll work out a plan from there. The great thing about BDSM is the constant negotiation and renegotiation, Bastian. You’re never stuck where you are unless you stop communicating.”
Just like that, he’s done talking—we’re done talking. I don’t fire him. He congratulates me and pats me on the back before sending me out the door. What in the fuck just happened? It was so quick; my mind’s reeling trying to figure it out. I drive all the way home in a daze before my thoughts clear enough to contemplate what he actually said.
“Bastian!” Looking over my shoulder, I see Ferry trotting up the street. “Bastian. Hold up.”
“What’s up, man?”
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you all morning.”
“I had some errands to run. I must have left my phone at home.”
“Figures. The one day something worthwhile comes up, you leave your phone at home.” Hunched over with his hands on his knees, he attempts to catch his breath.
“Did you run here from your studio?”
“Yeah. Like I said, I need to talk to you.”
“You need to quit smoking. Jesus. It’s only like six blocks and you’re about to have a heart attack.”
“Save the lecture.” Standing, he reminds me he’s a fairly intimidating guy. “Le Musee wants to feature us.”
“In Manhattan? That Le Musee?”
“That would be the one.”
“Fuck, that’s fabulous. When?”
“Next week. Please tell me you can pull this rabbit out of your hat, Bastian. This is huge. Le Musee is booked for years. They called my studio this morning to request us as a duo. Some Italian artist backed out with health issues and they called us. They called us, Bastian. Are you getting what I’m saying?”
This is huge. The break beyond all breaks. They are the international mecca in the United States. Le Musee makes Tara look like a hillbilly, although I mean no disrespect because she is high society, but this is elite. “Of course I get it. What did you tell them? Who called, anyway?”
“Aaron Dubois, the son of the owner and curator. I told them I needed to talk to you and would call them ba
ck shortly. That was two hours ago. Damn, Bastian, where the fuck were you?”
Ignoring the interrogation, I ask, “How many pieces do they want available?”
“At least four from each of us and two collaborative works, but up to ten each, depending on their size, and four collaborative works. If we can swing it, we’ll need to give them dimensions and rough shots so they can determine the layout prior to our arrival. There’s not time to ship the pieces. We’ll have to drive them there and be there two days before opening. The exhibit is three days. We’re expected to make appearances two of the three—Friday and Saturday night.”
“Damn, that’s a lot of work for three days.”
“Bastian, pull your head out of your ass. This is Le Musee!”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.” We keep yapping as I open my front door. My living room is evidence pulling off an exhibit will not be an issue. I’ve been painting more in the last few months than I’ve ever painted before, quality pieces, ones I’m proud of.
“Damn, when’s the last time you cleaned this place up?”
“Last night, why?” I look around. Cleaning up might not be an accurate assessment of what I did. “Okay, I moved stuff to a pile to make room for easels and canvases.” I push stuff out of the way. “Don’t give me any shit, Ferry. I live alone and painting’s all I’ve got.”
“Are you going to give me an answer?”
“About what?”
“Le Musee!”
“Jesus, Ferry. There’s no question to answer. Of course we’ll make it work. You still have the paintings I did for you a couple weeks ago?”
“Yeah, I would’ve told you if I sold them.”
“That takes care of the two collaborative. Are you good on the pieces for your part? I just need to decide which ones I want to take, but I have plenty to choose from in varying sizes.”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
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