by Ashe Barker
Freya signs her reply, “We’re fine. Yes, sorry. It was a shock though. I didn’t expect to see Summer here.”
Old habits die hard. On autopilot I start to translate, intending to verbalize Freya’s words for her. I’m stopped in my tracks as Eva raises an imperious hand. I can definitely see the respected academic now. Woe betides any cocky undergraduate who falls foul of Professor Byrne.
Eva’s gaze scans the pair of us then settles on Freya. “Shock, as in nasty? Or surprise, as in nice?”
I hold my breath. Long moments pass before Freya’s furious expression softens. I see…relief. Sorrow. Bewilderment. And fear. All caused by me. Could I feel any smaller?
She inhales slowly, deeply. Then, “Surprise. A nice surprise.”
Eva appears ready to accept that. She draws our attention to the wine chilling in the fridge and reminds us that there’s a party going on and we’re missing it. Ashley places two glasses on the table before leveling a long stare at me. “Well, Summer. You are full of surprises. I’m so glad you could come. You’ve really livened things up. And here I was, thinking my side of the wedding would be a bit on the quiet side. But no, not a bit of it, not with you around. First you offer to deck Dan, and then we have to stop you brawling with our little Freya here. I will be wanting to hear the full story, you can be sure of that. Meanwhile, get drunk and giggly and love each other. Please.”
I stand to hug Ashley, her irreverent mischief just the antidote to the depth of emotion threatening to completely overwhelm me. Even so, my gaze is watery as I catch sight of Freya over her shoulder. I try a smile—and another attempt at an apology.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble. I’d never have come if I thought…”
“Don’t you dare!” This from Ashley, who grabs me and pulls me back into a hug. She’s surprisingly strong for her size. “You’re welcome, both of you. Freya?”
And that’s it. Freya launches herself from her chair and rushes at me, but this time her face is alight with joy. She hurls herself into my arms. Or it may have been the other way round. Whatever, we’re clinging to each other, sobbing. I’m apologizing, though it seems an irrelevance. No one’s listening. And a few moments later both Freya and I realize we’re alone. Eva and Ashley clearly consider their duty done for now and they’ve rejoined the party leaving us to sort out our differences.
Chapter Eleven
Freya goes straight to the heart of things. Her first question, once we’ve poured the wine and sat back down, is of her usual ‘take no prisoners’ variety.
“Something happened, didn’t it? Something between you and Dan? That night at the club when I met Nick.”
I gaze at her, then at my wine. I’m making a habit of this. Too much of a habit and the night’s hardly started yet. I leave the table and go to the sink, grab a tumbler and fill it with tap water. By the time I’ve glugged most of it down and refilled the glass, ready to resume my place at the table, I’ve gathered my wits sufficiently to be able to formulate an answer. Which is not to answer. Not yet. Something happened, sure enough, but I couldn’t for the life in me even start to tell her what. Apart from the obvious—he stripped me and spanked me. Between orgasms, naturally. No doubt Freya is owed an explanation, but she’ll have to join the queue.
I tell her that what happened is history now, which of course it is. Sort of. I’m not yet ready to contemplate the future in any detail. I don’t think for one moment Freya’s convinced—she’s known me too long—but she decides not to press me on the matter, for which I’m profoundly grateful. I do reassure her, though, that I’m on my way home, expecting to be back in Cumbria in a day or so. She’s pleased and relieved. I ask if my old room at her apartment is still vacant. Freya tells me that she’s more or less moved in with Nick now, in Cartmel, so the whole flat is vacant and mine for as long as I want to use it.
I don’t deserve Freya. I really don’t.
We rejoin the party after a half hour or so. Eva catches my eye immediately from across the room, her eyebrow raised in inquiry, a quest for reassurance that she will not after all need to trouble herself with getting bloodstains out of her living room carpet. I smile and nod. She smiles back, and resumes her conversation with Tom’s mother as Freya and I start to mingle. Freya knows one or two of the guests but like me, she’s something of an outsider, a newcomer to this group. We stick together, circulating and socializing, and generally enjoying the company. Ashley’s friends are nice, pleasant people. And it’s so good to be back with my closest friend. Eventually, I start to relax.
I automatically translate for Freya, though it’s quickly apparent that Eva is well able to fill that role too. We don’t get that many opportunities to chat just the two of us, but I do manage to establish that Freya’s not been exactly idle while I’ve been away. Despite his initial point-blank refusal to entertain her, she did manage, after all, to convince Nicholas Hardisty to train her in the submissive arts. The deal they struck was that she’d move into his home for a month, where it seems he has his own private dungeon, placing herself entirely at his disposal. He refused to accept payment, which strikes me as nothing short of astonishing but maybe I have a skewed perspective on this. Freya just waves my surprise away.
“Oh, it was a daft idea. I never should have offered him money. And now, we’re…well, we’re—a couple. Permanent. He’s my Master.”
I pass her an orange juice, her plastered wrist reminding me I really should ask how she came by that injury. I’m no longer inclined to lay the blame for it at Nick Hardisty’s feet, though I once would have. This ‘Master’ business, though, now I’m not sure I like the sound of that.
“Did you say ‘Master’?” Best to check. My signing is a little rusty. It’s been a few weeks.
She nods earnestly. “Yes. Master. It’s what I wanted all along. Nick too, I think, but he took long enough getting his head around it. Still, I’m patient and we got there eventually.”
Not that rusty, it seems.
I’m not entirely certain where ‘there’ is, but there’s no denying Freya’s happiness. She’s positively glowing. Eva and Ashley’s revelations from earlier have at least alerted me to the possibility that these Dom/sub relationships can work, do seem to work. Sometimes. Maybe Freya has found her Mr Right. But Master?
“If he’s your Master, what does that make you?”
She looks at me, her gaze long, considering. At last she lifts her hands to answer, her words carefully chosen, “Not his slave, if that’s what you mean? Or his property. I obey him though. Usually. And I always put his needs and wishes first—except when he’s wrong, obviously.”
Right. No help there then. There’s something else I need to ask, but I’m cautious, uncertain how to phrase it. I wouldn’t want her to misunderstand, get the wrong end of the stick. “What about your money? I mean, as your Master, does he…?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t…”
“Doesn’t know. That’s right. I never got round to telling him.”
“But, what about the car? The flat? The bloody clothes you spend a fortune on? The first class travel to Australia at every verse end, for Christ’s sake?” I’m speaking in a whisper.
Even so, Freya glances around nervously, making sure no one can overhear me. I could lower my voice, but the issues won’t diminish. I settle though for sticking to signing. At least then only Eva could understand what we’re talking about and she’s preoccupied with refilling the nibbles. “He must suspect something. I mean, forty odd million quid takes some hiding.”
“No it doesn’t. Not really. The bank looks after everything, makes my investments, deals with my bills, expenses, all that. When we first met, I told Nick I’d won the Lottery, that I’d won enough to splash out on the car, the flat. He never asked for more details. I don’t imagine he even notices what I wear. He’s more interested in me naked, in any case.”
Too much information. Freya rush
es on, keen to reassure me, “I’m going to tell him. Soon. Very soon.”
“But, even if he didn’t ask you outright how much you won, won’t he feel you’ve deceived him? For all this time. I mean, this is big. It makes a difference. It has to.”
“Perhaps. Yes, probably. I know. I meant to. But it’s hard. And as time passed, it just got harder. But I will tell him. I have to. I know. Especially now.”
“Why now?”
“I want to buy shares in Tom’s wind farm project. Well, I’m thinking about it. If the financial projections check out, I might put up around five million pounds. And then, everyone will know, because I’ll have to provide my bank details. I’ll definitely tell Nick the truth before we get to that stage.”
I just stare at her, my brain approaching meltdown. I’m no expert on Dom/sub stuff, far from it, but I’d have thought honesty would rank up there with nice boobs and a more than passable pain tolerance threshold in the catalog of sub requirements. I may be a novice as far as this lifestyle of Freya’s is concerned but I’m pretty sure that the mere fact that Nick Hardisty didn’t ask her directly will not cut it as adequate explanation for such a glaring omission. I’m also more than a little taken aback at the casual mention of a five million pound investment, but all things are relative, I daresay. I reach for my drink, another iced water this time, just by way of pacing myself.
“I bought a racehorse, did I mention that?”
The glass falls from my nerveless fingers, splashing water all over Eva’s beautiful shag pile. I just knew I was destined to make a mess. “A racehorse. Did you say racehorse?”
Freya’s smile is benign as she helps Eva and Mrs Richardson to mop up the puddle I’ve caused. Permanent water damage averted, she continues her tale. “Yes. A racehorse. She’s beautiful. She’s called Dancing Queen, Queenie for short. She’s stabled in Cheshire somewhere. I’m going to go and see her as soon as I can.”
“You haven’t even seen her?” I sip my water, careful to keep a tight grip on the glass.
“Oh, yes. When I bought her. It was a race meeting at Cartmel. Nick and I went, and Queenie was auctioned there.”
My head reeling, I try to make some sort of sense of it all. “Didn’t Nick smell a rat when you started bidding?” Racehorses don’t come cheap.
Freya has the grace to look slightly sheepish, but only for a fleeting moment. “Not from the toilet. I waited till he needed the loo then I emailed Max at the bank, got them to represent me at the auction. I was an anonymous UK bidder.” She looks quite proud of herself now and clearly does not regret her purchase. I’m horrified. When did my lovely, honest and transparent friend become so devious?
I might have quizzed Freya more closely on the events of recent weeks. I certainly want to. Apart from my rampant curiosity, while she’s answering my questions she can’t be firing any of her own off.
The rest of the party passes in something of a blur for me, no doubt helped along that way by my imbibing at least a bottle of Nathan Darke’s fine chardonnay. At last, sometime around midnight I think, we all totter off to bed, the children having been banished upstairs much earlier in the evening. Eva was worrying about where to put us all, but as soon as she realizes that Freya and I are friends, she bunks us up together. Nick is dossing at Greystones with the rest of the menfolk so I get his half of their double bed. I’m asleep almost before my head hits the pillow.
* * * *
I’m never very good company first thing, and especially not when my head is still pounding from the effects of alcohol. A cheery male voice dragging me from my sleep, announcing himself as Nick Hardisty and observing that I’m sleeping in his bed does nothing to improve my mood. I mutter the first thing that enters my head, and it isn’t especially polite.
“Who do you think you are? Daddy Bear?”
The infamous Nick Hardisty says something about my manners being less than ideal, to which I respond with a distinctly surly, “My manners are fine. Fuck off.”
Even with my face buried in my—his?—pillow, Freya’s sharp intake of breath is unmistakable. Tough. What’s he doing in here anyway when we’re trying to sleep? The next thing I know, my lovely warm duvet is snatched away. I make a grab for it, but he’s too fast and the quilt is sailing away from me, across the room. I was sleeping in my underwear and modesty takes over as I try to curl into a ball. Nick Hardisty merely leans in and lifts me bodily from the bed. Some residual sense tells me he won’t hurt me, definitely not with Freya watching, but I’m still struggling and kicking furiously as he strides across the room.
“If there’s any fucking off to be done, darling, it’ll be down to you.” His voice lacks any hint of warmth as he makes his intentions clear. He marches out onto the landing with me firmly imprisoned in his arms.
I’m expecting to be dumped unceremoniously outside the room but instead his voice echoes along the hallway as he yells for Dan, of all people. Moments later my nemesis is ambling toward us, looking more than a little amused. Nick Hardisty is far from jovial as he calmly dumps me into Dan’s outstretched arms.
I glare at Dan through bleary and no doubt blood-shot eyes. “Put me down.” I wriggle, expecting my feet to be lowered to the floor. The click of Freya’s bedroom door closing reminds me that my bag is still in there, containing my wedding clothes, makeup, toiletries, the lot. I face the unwelcome prospect of having to encounter her angry Dom again and plead for my stuff to be returned. Then I’ll need to find somewhere else in the house to change and get ready. Shit!
But none of this is going to be an immediate issue, as Dan ignores my instructions to leave me to my own devices, preferring instead to march off back down the landing with me still in his arms. I open my mouth to protest. I’m still gathering my wits to deliver my next demand as he turns into another bedroom. He back-heels the door shut behind him, then drops me onto the bed. It’s a large double, I note irrelevantly, as he shrugs out of his light jacket.
“Lucky that Ashley’s sisters are early risers, as well as commendably tee-total, otherwise we’d be a little crowded in here. I was over at Greystones last night and they used my room. Still, we have the place to ourselves now.” He starts to unfasten the cuffs on his shirt.
I watch in horror. Surely he isn’t intending to undress? I watch for a few moments then with a yelp, I try to leap off the bed. I’m intending to head for the door, suddenly not caring a jot about my state of near enough nudity. Dan intercepts me halfway there.
“Don’t do it. Nathan may be pretty laid back most of the time, but he won’t thank you for parading around his house in your underwear. He’d consider it bad-manners, what with the children being here and all.”
That’s the second time in the last five minutes that my manners have been called into question and I’m getting sick of it. Fully awake now, I’m prepared to concede that Nick may have had a point. I could have handled that better. I was rude, and Dom’s never take kindly to that I do appreciate. But it was not entirely my fault.
“I was asleep, Nick woke me up. He bundled me out of the bedroom and just handed me over to you, next to naked. He apparently didn’t care whether there were children around or not. How come I’m in the wrong? If Nathan has any objections he should be talking to Nick, not me. And you’re just plain deluded if you think I’m staying in here while you strip off.”
I get to my feet, indignant.
“I want my stuff. I’ll find a spare bathroom or something. Let me pass, please.” I attempt a haughty tone, choosing to ignore Dan’s slow smile as he takes his time raking my body with his eyes.
“Not a good idea, Summer. I take your point about what happened, but stay out of Nick’s way for a while. You can get dressed in here.”
“I need my bag…”
I move to step around him, but he simply picks me up again and deposits me back on the bed, this time dropping alongside me. I try to roll away, but he quickly captures my wrists, pinning them to the pillow above my head. I’m starting to panic.
Surely he can’t mean to…?
He doesn’t. His grip slackens, but his body is still looming over mine as he watches me spread out below him.
“Easy, Summer. You know I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t you?” His tone is soothing, hypnotic, his eyes a deep, rich brown as he calms me.
He waits, his eyes locked on mine. At last, I nod. Slowly. He promised me a spanking, which is one thing. But this is quite different, or would be. I know that whatever else Dan might be, he is not violent and I am safe here. I close my eyes, drag in a deep breath. “I’m fine. Really. You can let go of me now.”
“I already did, love.” He straightens, his face creasing in a gentle smile. “I’ll get your bag for you in a moment. Have you had coffee yet this morning?”
I shake my head, at once acutely conscious that I need my morning hit of caffeine. And fast. He nods his head to the bedside table.
“Take mine. I’m on my third anyway.”
“How come you’ve got coffee up here? I thought you said Ashley’s sisters were sleeping in this room.” I’m sure he wasn’t carrying a mug when he was out on the landing.
“I brought it up with me earlier. This is my room normally, when I visit here. I gave it up last night because I was dossing at the farm with the rest of the stag party. Ayla and Melisa are already up and having their breakfast downstairs, so I could get my room back to shower and change in. He nudges the cup toward me then sits on the edge of the bed. He watches as I sip and sigh my appreciation, my hands clasping the mug.
“Good night was it? The party?”
I nod. “It was…eventful.” I slant a glance at him. “Did you know Freya was going to be here?”
“Yes. I was halfway to Greystones, though, by the time I realized you probably didn’t. Nice surprise?”
“Yes. Eventually. I thought she was going to hit me at first—for worrying her. I went off, you see. Without telling her.”
“So I gathered. And I know that feeling.” He rubs his jaw ruefully as I drop my gaze.