As I opened the gallery door, Sera’s game face spread across her features. No one we came in contact with, including Tara, had any idea that she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her emotional fortress was erect, but it wasn’t going to hold for long.
We weren’t in a rush to get through the pieces, so we admired them while Sera pointed out things she thought I might not otherwise see. I illustrated his use of color and light refraction, enjoying the beauty in the twisted metal. As usual, Tara was spot on, and Sera was right: the man was a genius. He’d be successful. His career was likely catapulting tonight with The West End acknowledging his talent. It was no exaggeration. Tara had the pull of any New York City gallery. Finstin was already well-known internationally, but this would send him soaring in the states.
Sera’s demeanor changed once she’d had more than she could handle. On the verge of a meltdown, she had played the obligatory game as long as she could stand, but it was time to leave. We wished Markus success, who was quite gracious and thanked us for attending.
With Sera’s arm tucked into my own, I accompanied her back to the car and helped her in while again admiring her unrecognized beauty. She didn’t see it, which made her even more appealing. Humility was an elegant quality, and she had it in spades.
I slipped behind the steering wheel and turned to see Sera staring out the window, vacant. “Where to?”
“There’s a bar on the edge of town. It’s typically pretty lowkey, an older crowd. We can talk there without interruption.”
I sensed her hesitation. “Is that what you want to do?”
“No, but not because I don’t want to tell you. I’m ashamed to.” Her eyes closed on the last word, and her voice was almost inaudible.
“Ashamed of what?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, although I figure you know more than I’ve admitted to. I don’t want you to think differently of me after tonight, but I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“I’ve never been a terribly judgmental person, Sera, but the last six years has changed my perspective on life. Time is fleeting; it’s infinite but not personally, just universally. Truth changes daily. Nothing is inevitable and death is certain. There was only one person who had stuck by me as I acknowledged those realities.
“Not one time in the last six years has Nate ever talked down to me, assessed blame, or condemned me, and I’ve given him huge reasons to do all of the above, especially in recent weeks. I can’t say I have given him the same respect, but it was primarily out of grief that I lashed out, which he recognized.
“If I can impart that same level of love and friendship to another human, then maybe I am deserving of it myself. Give me the chance to show you there’s nothing you can tell me that will change my opinion of you. We’re all broken, Sera. Every one of us. Some of our cracks are just more visible than others. Friends are the glue that keeps us from falling apart.”
Sera continued to stare out the window, and a tear trickled down her cheek as she shook her head. “You couldn’t help what happened to you, Bastian. I made a choice every day to live in my circumstances. I chose my battleground. I ignorantly stayed, costing me more than just money in medical bills. I’ve lost my self-respect, my dignity, my self-confidence. I’m just a shell on display for the people around me. There’s no substance. I’m hollow.”
She wiped her cheek and turned toward me, but I waited for her to speak, wishing I could fix her hurt.
She licked her lips, and her shoulders slumped on a sigh. “Do you know how easy it is to break something hollow, Bastian? I’m worthless.”
I didn’t believe that, not for a second. “You have a choice. You just acknowledged that. You don’t have to succumb to this. You can change your destiny. Surely you see that. You aren’t bound to anyone or anything.”
She pondered my words quietly, and I figured her mind was reeling, even though she stayed silent. “Come on. I’m going to need a lot of alcohol to get through all this.” She paused briefly. “I want to tell you everything. I want you to understand me, to see me for what I am. I hope by the end of this you get why it’s been a secret. It wasn’t just Ferry who didn’t want people to know. Everyone knows his reputation for being a playboy, Bastian. I couldn’t fight off the naysayers. I’d never be able to defend him or what he does to anyone. Hell, I can’t defend him to myself most days.”
The waitress left us sitting in the back corner of the bar after Sera instructed her to keep the alcohol flowing until a credit card appeared on the table.
When Sera dropped her shawl from her shoulders, unwinding it from her arms, all shades of blue, green, yellow, and brown, some older than others, covered her skin. The bruises were worse than I’d ever seen. She saw me staring at them, but I didn’t give a shit. I could no longer pretend what she was experiencing was normal or that it didn’t exist. It was far from fucking normal, and the evidence of its existence was painfully obvious.
She slammed down two consecutive shots of tequila. “I’ll get to it, Bastian. I just need something to numb the pain first.”
I noticed her twisted fingers when she sat down the glass, but when I reached for her, she pulled her hand away and tucked it under the table. For the love of God, she was a sculptor; Ferry was taking her identity by taking her hands.
A mixture of pain, sympathy, and anger rang through my words. “Do they hurt?”
Shrugging, she didn’t answer the question right away. “They won’t for long.”
“What else hurts, Sera?”
She thought I hadn’t noticed how carefully she moved, taking care not to touch anything, using only her left hand. Her face was swollen although not discolored. The bruises were just the tip of the iceberg, but I doubted she would show me the entire formation.
She was broken, the light I used to see long gone. “Everything hurts, but the physical injuries are far less painful than the emotional.” There was nothing left of her free spirit; the sparkle was gone. Her eyes were dull and hurting. All that was left was the shell Ferry had left for the outside world.
We sat in silence.
I waited for her to reach the point where she could open up while she continued to toss back shot after shot. Meanwhile, I sipped on a beer I didn’t really want. One of us needed to be sober, and in my estimation, that had to be me. When she finally leaned back, admitting defeat with a sigh, I took that as my cue.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was Ferry?” I still hadn’t gotten an answer to that question, and it was the basis for all of her lies.
“Because when you and I first met, Ferry was working with you on Kaleidoscope Dark. I knew your story, Bastian. Not all of it, but I knew you’d lost yourself when you lost your wife. I mourned your loss just like the rest of the art world. I was flattered you had any interest in me, but as time went on, I wasn’t oblivious about why.” She sneered a bit, her eyes darkening and her lip curling.
“I don’t follow.”
“I know your interest in me is in recreating Sylvie.” She deadpanned. “I’m not good enough for you, either. You want me to be someone other than who I am.” Her words hurt, but I couldn’t deny them.
My initial attraction to her was not her work. It was not Sera as an artist or her as a person. It was my wife. “That may have been true a year ago, but it hasn’t been in quite some time. In reality, you’re nothing like my wife, other than your kind spirit and your resemblance to her physically, or you did when we first met. I don’t see it much now. I didn’t know you remembered what Sylvie looked like.”
“I didn’t.” She huffed. “Ferry was kind enough to point it out, repeatedly, after you and I started to spend time together. I’m sure it was his way of keeping me in my place, but it stung. He had a few pictures of the two of you at events. I was blinded by the similarities. I could have been her twin except for the age difference.”
“It wasn’t like that, and Ferry knew it. When he recognized you in my paintings, he pried a little, but I never
mentioned Sylvie. Our friendship is not based on my trying to recreate Sylvie. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it wasn’t my motivation for reaching out, but Sera, that only took it so far. Once I started to spend time with you, getting to know you, the appeal changed. It wasn’t to bring back Sylvie. For the first time in years, I had another friend, one who brought joy to every day.”
“It doesn’t matter. Ferry used anything and everything he could to hurt me, to keep me bogged down.”
“I don’t get it. How’d you get caught up with him?”
She told me about having run into him at multiple events when she finished graduate school. She knew his reputation for playing women, never going back for seconds after he’d feasted on them. She was also aware of what her association with him could do for her career and thought the latter outweighed the former. As a newbie on the scene, she recognized how being seen with him would boost her popularity.
She ran into him at a club one night when she was with Mark. “I was strapped to a cross when he broke the scene and asked Mark if he could play. It was a total violation of all protocol, but Mark knew who he was, and Mark and I weren’t in love by any stretch of the imagination. We were play partners who trusted each other. He looked to me for confirmation, I gave a slight nod, and Ferry took the whip. Mark never left me that night. Through the entire scene, he stayed, ready to intervene at any time if needed. Ferry maintained the composure of the Master he’s known to be. He yielded the whip like a pro; he knew just where to strike to elicit the greatest response, and brought me to orgasm multiple times without ever laying a finger on me. When he was done, he came to me, whispered in my ear, ‘I’m going to make you mine.’ Then he walked away, thanking Mark for allowing him to intrude.”
I didn’t know a lot about BDSM, but I knew enough to know that interrupting a scene was unheard of, and Ferry’s arrogance knew no bounds.
“Mark got me down and administered aftercare, but that night, I changed. The more Ferry had struck me, the more I wanted it, each blow of the whip brought me clarity. People like me need pain, and people like Ferry need to give it. The high was greater than anything I’d ever felt. My entire body relaxed from the orgasms. My mind had floated to subspace, allowing me to go further than I would have ever allowed Mark to take me. The next day, the lacerations were bad; some probably needed stitches. I had endured one hell of a beating; they stung like red ants had eaten me up, clothing hurt. Somehow Ferry found my address and came by. I went to the door with a robe on that hurt with every swish of the fabric and found him on my doorstep with salve.”
The memory was a fond one for Sera, that much was evident in her expression. “He came by to take care of me, Bastian. He knew the lashing he’d given me was going to stay with me for several days. He helped me into a warm bath, allowed me to soak before drying me off. Laid me out on my bed, with the most tender of touches, and he soothed away the hurt. He stayed with me all day, never making any sexual advance just doting on me tenderly. He put me in bed and left after I fell asleep. The next morning he was back to administer the same salve. After three days, he was curious to know if I had any interest in playing again.”
She swallowed hard, and I knew this was where things went haywire in her story, even if she hadn’t known it at the time.
“Bastian, he never returns for repeat play, with anyone, ever. I was the different one. I was special. I can’t describe that feeling as a female, as a submissive, as an artist—Ferry wanted me. Everyone who saw us knew something was different about me, and he put me on a pedestal. The clout I gained in the lifestyle by being his submissive was undeniable.
“The first year the relationship was more than I ever expected. He was attentive, adored me, spent time with me. We played regularly, occasionally went out, even though it was always art-related. I had no idea there were other women in other cities, other submissives he played with every time he visited. I wasn’t the only woman he repeated; I was just the only one in town. I had no clue he was fucking other subs. I believed the reason for the secrecy in our relationship was the lifestyle we’d chosen. Living in the South, it never would have been accepted, and he feared if it got out, we would be ousted. He convinced me of that.” Sera glanced down at nothing, but it said so much about her emotional state.
Defeated.
Broken.
“I never would have known had one of those women not called me after seeing us photographed together at my opening. There was a headline in the New York Gazette about the most sought-after bachelor in the art world having finally been nabbed. She wanted to make sure I knew I was one of many. She sought to put me in my place, to ensure I knew I was no better than anyone else. I didn’t have anything special. I heard the pain in her voice. She didn’t like being one; she wanted to be the one. I wanted to be angry with her, but I thanked her for the call and then sat in my apartment and cried for hours. When he found me the next day, I was punished like never before.”
She glanced up at me with tears pooled in her eyes. “Nothing soothed that hurt. That was the tipping point. That was the moment we went from playful to painful.”
From there, her story continued on a downward spiral, detailing their tumultuous relationship. She’d been seeing him for several years, thinking someday she would be the only one who had withstood the test of time; however, that time had never come. She continued the torture to prove to Ferry that she had what it took to be with him, to love him.
“I lied to myself and you, Bastian.” She blinked, allowing the tears to fall, and then continued with her eyes firmly planted on mine. “I knew what I was going through weren’t accidents. They weren’t scenes gone wrong. They weren’t BDSM. They were abuse. I’m ashamed to have allowed anyone to think those incidents were associated with a lifestyle that has so openly welcomed my eccentricities and me. I wanted to believe the highs were worth the lows, but the lows started taking over the highs until there were no highs, just inevitable truths I avoided. I was young when we met, not just in age but experience. I was a baby. I trusted him to guide me because that’s what Doms and Masters do. They’re supposed to cherish their property. I craved the pain; he knew I needed it, and it became his outlet as well as my own. He justified taking it further than he should by shaming my need for it, condoning his behavior as his satisfying that desire.
“Somehow, in my fucked up brain, I equated his desire to meet my need as love. Being his property, his priority. The reality is, Bastian, he never loved me, and I often wonder if he even likes me.”
The longer she talked, the more I wanted to throw up. I had to restrain myself from throwing shit across the bar as she told me about the hospitalizations, the broken bones, the stitches. All while she lied to protect Ferry, to keep his identity secure, secret.
“I can’t tell you how many lies I’ve come up with to tell hospitals and how many different hospitals I’ve gone to, to prevent people from recognizing me. I’ve driven a hundred miles not to go to the same place I went the last time. I even filed a false police report about being beaten on the street by a random man, but Wednesday night, something snapped in me.”
Counting the glasses on the table, she’d had nine shots and no food that I was aware of. Her eyes were glazed over, the haze giving her a sappy appearance. She had to be drunk.
Sera twisted her hands in her lap. “I reported him, Bastian. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep lying to protect him when he isn’t doing anything he promised.” A muffled sob escaped, and I wanted to pull her to me but sat still. “I gave the nurse his name. I told her everything. I spent hours going through every doctor’s visit I had lied about, every hospitalization he had caused, every stitch, every broken bone. I bared it all. Every sordid detail. By the time the police had arrived, I tried to recant, knowing what I had just done would cause irrevocable damage to Ferry and myself, but the nurse was more than willing to testify. Last night, the state picked up the charges and then arrested Ferry. Do you have any idea what this means?
Any clue what will happen to his career, Bastian? Can you imagine the media frenzy?” Sheer terror marred her brow, and it was a wonder she hadn’t burst into tears.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Sera? Why the hell do you care about his career? Why aren’t you looking for justice for yourself? Why don’t you want him behind bars where he can’t inflict pain on you or anyone else? I don’t understand why you don’t believe you’re worth more than this.” People around us started to stare, but I hadn’t realized I’d raised my voice.
Her voice fell to nothing more than a whisper. “He’s looking for me.”
“What?”
“He posted bail this afternoon. He’s looking for me.” She practically hissed in hushed tones. I’d never seen the manic look that stared me down. “He went to my house, to my friends’ houses. He is looking for me. I can’t go home. I shouldn’t be here with you; I shouldn’t have gone to the gallery. If he finds me, he’s going to kill me. I have no idea what he’ll do to you. He hates you. After the scene at Le Musée, Ferry realized you cared more for me than you did him. When you stood up to him in my defense, he knew you wouldn’t side with him if you ever found out. He has monitored every move I’ve made since we came back from New York with strict instructions to end the friendship with you.” Terror morphed her features into someone unrecognizable. “You’re in danger, Bastian; so am I.”
I threw down my credit card. The waitress appeared out of nowhere, taking it with sadness written on her face. She’d heard every word of this three-hour diatribe.
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