by K. Bromberg
“Fiona,” Margie said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “We’re up.”
I hugged Karen. “Good-bye. Eat something, would you? You’re skin and bones.”
“I will. Good luck out there.”
Elliot and Frances entered through the glass doors, and I noticed that he was frowning. We walked in silence to the conference room. I said good-bye to the linoleum, the garden outside the window. Silently, as a prayer to people not present, I said good-bye to Jack who was completely unfuckable, Warren who was an act of violence waiting to happen, Mark who was one of a hundred or more.
I didn’t know what waited for me outside. I didn’t know if Deacon would take me back, didn’t know if the media would crush me, but I was ready to be out of Westonwood—that was for damn sure.
seventeen.
Mom didn’t come back. It was just me and Margie with Elliot and Frances. The table shined in all its lacquer glory under the horizontal shadows of the window blinds. A black spider of a conference call unit sat in the middle of the table, ignored. I tried to make eye contact with Elliot, and he met my eyes once we sat. I saw no reassurances in the gaze, but he was never one to let a crack in his professional veneer show.
I tucked my hair behind my ears. Had I brushed it? I was about to go back into the world, and I’d hate to do it ungroomed, sloppy, with scraggly red hair and no makeup. I already felt as though I had one foot out the door.
“Ms. Drazen,” Frances said to Margie, “can we get you anything?”
“Out of here?”
She smiled so disarmingly, Frances laughed, and the tension of the room broke a little.
“Well, thanks for coming.” Frances looked as if she’d applied lipstick fifteen seconds before opening the glass doors. “This conversation is being recorded for the patient’s protection.”
I almost laughed out loud but choked it down.
Frances continued. “Doctor Chapman and I will be issuing our recommendations to the judge and district attorney for the City of Los Angeles, in the case of Fiona Maura Drazen.” Frances folded her hands in front of her and looked me in the eye. “After careful consideration by the administration of this hospital, and the bearing in mind the counsel of Dr. Chapman, we’ve decided to recommend you stay at Westonwood or another accredited facility for an additional fourteen to forty-five days of observation, pursuant to Section 5250 of the California Welfare and Institutions code.”
I swallowed. “Excuse me?”
“What’s this about?” Margie demanded. “She’s functioning. She’s capable. I’ve seen far sicker people released on their own recognizance.”
“She’s had three violent outbursts while under our care,” Frances said.
I spun on Elliot. “You said the meds caused the outbursts.”
“I said maybe,” he said gently. “I’m sorry, but—”
Frances broke in, “And she still has no recall of the incident.”
“There was no incident,” Margie growled. “You can ask Deacon Bruce.”
“The judge thinks there was,” Frances said. “He’s concerned about letting a woman with psychotic episodes back into society.”
“We just accepted a plea deal.”
“From the prosecutor. Judge trumps lawyer.”
Margie was holding herself together admirably, but I could see her gears turning. I bet the two psychologists across the table could as well.
“Our recommendation is that she be kept here for her own safety,” Elliot said softly. He closed his little folder and stood. “I’m in session in two minutes. Excuse me.” He nodded to each of us and strode out.
I was left sitting in shock. What had just happened?
I had been so sure I was leaving. I’d said good-bye to the place, checked my room for personal items, looked at the cafeteria for the last time. Staying was worse than a defeat. It was a humiliation.
How was I letting that motherfucker walk out of there?
I spun out of my chair and dashed into the reception area. He was just beyond the glass doors.
“Elliot,” I called.
He slowed down, as if deciding what to do.
I ran to catch up. “What happened? Come on, you know I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
He shook his head. “It’s for the best.”
“I’ll have you in session tomorrow, and I’m not saying a word until you tell me what happened.”
“Fiona, I—”
“You can shove your little pen tip up your ass. I’m going to make your life miserable.”
He smiled ruefully and looked at the floor. “I’m not your therapist anymore. I’m going back to Compton.”
“Fuck you are.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be here. I think you’ll be just fine. You’re doing great.”
“Save the platitudes for the ones who need them.”
His neck tensed, and his eyes got hard. That was my gotcha moment, and I didn’t want it. His voice went from heavy cream to wire brush, and the stroke of every syllable drew blood. “Once you get out there with your cute little plea deal, you’ll get eaten alive. Maybe by the press. Maybe by that man you almost killed. Maybe he’ll kill you this time instead of breaking your teeth. The judge on your case is not out to help you, trust me. You don’t have the tools to handle life outside these doors. You’ll go back to using, and I’m not willing to wonder if I could have done something else to help you. I’m just going to do it. This is the only way to protect you.”
“It was your job to assess my sanity. Not protect me.”
He held his hands out, his clipboard clutched in his fingers. “That’s just tough, Fiona. This was the last real thing I did here, and I’m okay with it.”
“Fuck you.”
He nodded, making me feel like a tantrum-prone child. And now what? He was going to say good-bye and leave me? No. Not allowed.
“This is not done,” I said.
“Good-bye, Fiona. Meeting you was something else.”
I turned around and ran back down the hall before he could say a word. I didn’t know what I was trying to stop. Some freight train of my thwarted expectations before it ran me over? Maybe the moment where I would wake up and realize I’d failed, and I was stuck here? So help me God, I couldn’t be there, cut off from everything for another month. Something had to be done, and if no one would do it for me, I would do it myself. I slammed past the glass doors, out of breath.
Margie stood staring at her phone.
“You have to keep Doctor Chapman here,” I said in a breath. “Make them. He can’t walk away.”
Margie heard me, I knew she did. I was right there, but she wasn’t listening.
“I fucked up,” she said.
“How? You made a deal, they can’t—”
“Dad was right. I’m too inexperienced. I would have had my finger on the judge’s pulse if I’d known better.”
What she was saying hit me like a slap.
“No,” I said.
“I’m sorry, Fiona. I tried, but you need a better lawyer. It’s not fair to you.”
“Not fair to me? I’m here now with nothing and no one… I don’t have Elliot, and now you’re leaving? What am I supposed to do? Margie, how am I supposed to make it? Don’t leave me.” My hands were flying. I was screaming.
Margie was trying to grab my hands and shush me at the same time. “Calm down.”
“Stay, and I’ll calm down. Stay with me.”
“I can’t. It’s not the best—”
“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”
When I tried to hold her close, hands on me pulled and tugged. There was a floor under me, and shadows in the light, and voices in all kinds of timbres and shades of gentleness. There was a discomfort in my arm like a stiff finger pushing against me, and soon after that, the hands relaxed, and everything went grey.
To be continued…
Thank you for reading.
If you know me, you know about the cliffhangers
, and the ending of Kick would have been of no consequence. If you don’t know me, well, I do cliffies, and that one was pretty bad. Kick is the first book of a story told in serial novella format, called Songs of Perdition. You can find out when the next one comes out by getting on the mailing list. It should be no later than mid-July, but typically, it’s 99c the first 24 hours after the mailing list notice goes out.
If you liked the writing, but fancy something complete, you should try the Songs of Submission, the serialized story of Jonathan Drazen, ten years after the incidents here. Seven novellas and three short stories about a kinky billionaire, an ingénue singer, love, sex, art and sin in the city of Los Angeles. Get the omni of books 1-3, or check out Book One, Beg. It’s free.
If you prefer full length reads, I’ve started a series called Songs of Corruption, about Theresa Drazen’s relationship with mafia capo Antonio Spinelli, wherein all her attempts at lawfulness and peace fail in the name of love. You can get the full length novel of Book One, Spin, here. There’s no cliffhanger.
Reading order and links are below:
My Goodreads fan group is called CD Canaries: join the group!
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Facebook fan page is here. I run this, and it's for official news and announcements.
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My email is [email protected].
****
Links and reading order below:
Songs of Submission, Sequence One
1) Beg (usually free on Amazon)
2) Tease
3) Submit
Songs of Dominance
Very short, optional read
3.5) Jessica/Sharon
Songs of Submission, Sequence Two
4) Control
5) Burn
6) Resist
Songs of Dominance
Very short, optional read between Burn and Resist
5.5) Rachel
Songs of Submission, Sequence Three
7) Sing
Songs of Dominance
7.5) Monica - a very short story, is the last of it, and you might need it after Sing.
If you prefer saving a couple of dollars, and feel ok committing to a few books at a time, the bundles might work for you.
Sequence One - books 1-3 Beg/Tease/Submit
Sequence Two - books 4-6 Control/Burn/Resist
Sing, and all the Songs of Dominance, are still separate as of this moment.
Worth
Shay Savage
Copyright © 2014
Shay Savage
All Rights Reserved
Cover design by JA Huss
Editing : Chaya
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems-except in the case of brief excerpts or quotations embodied in review or critical writings without the expressed permission of the author, Shay Savage.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
I
The cart bounced, and rippling pain traveled swiftly up my side. It radiated from the point where a sword had entered my left side and then up to where my arm met the rest of my body. I felt need to vomit, but swallowed back bile rather than soil the back end of the rickety, horse-drawn cart.
I tightened my hands into fists and stared up at the wooden roof above me. A young man wearing his battle-scarred armor stepped into view and knelt beside me. His dark hair creased his forehead as he looked down upon me with concern in his eyes.
“Antonius, where the fuck are we?” I snarled at the young man. I looked down at myself, sans armor, wearing nothing but the tunic normally beneath it and a subligarium wrapped around my lower region. There was a long tear up the side of the tunic, and blood seeped into the woven fabric despite the bandages wrapped around me.
“Nearly there, Faustus,” Antonius replied.
“Nearly where, you cocksucker?” I clenched my teeth as the cart hit a rut in the road. Another pain seared through me.
“Mediolanum,” he replied. He gripped the inside wall of the cart to steady himself. “There is a hospital there with a good medicus named Sergius. He has skills as a surgeon. He can sew your wound.”
“Fucking Gauls,” I growled under my breath. Flashes of the battle and of the young Gaul who stabbed me took over my thoughts. I tightened my hand around the edge of the bench where I lay and remembered the feeling of my own sword cleaving his body in two—punishment for his grievance against me. “They know they can’t win, but still they fight like dogs for a bitch.”
“They do at that.” He smiled half a smile and raised an eyebrow at me. “There are far fewer of them fighting today, thanks to you.”
I huffed a breath out my nose, which caused further pain up my side. I closed my eyes tightly and willed the pain to pass, but it remained. I let my mind return to the battlefield where I commanded a Legion of Rome against the insufferable Gauls who still attempted to defy the emperor’s rule. I lost a few good men on the field today, but the blood of the Gauls was far more prevalent.
The cart jarred as it hit another deep rut in the road. I gritted my teeth and bit into my tongue to keep the scream from passing my lips.
“Not much longer,” Antonius assured me. He placed his hand on my forearm, but I shook it away.
“If the gods let me live so long,” I muttered before the cart again bounced wildly, and a scream passed my lips right before all went dark.
When I finally managed to open my eyes again, the first thing I saw was her.
She had flax-colored hair, as brilliant as the sun on a summer morning and eyes of dark blue nearly as dark as midnight with long lashes to frame them. Her skin was creamy, smooth and flawless. As she leaned over my body, the thin folds of her dress billowed to show the curve of her breasts beneath the fabric. The cold bronze collar coiled around her slender neck marked her as a slave.
It had been long since I had laid eyes upon a woman, slave or otherwise. Though there was a camp near the battlefield tents filled with whores for the taking, I did not deem it necessary to frequent the place. My thoughts were always of blood and battle, not the baser needs I prescribed for my men. I felt myself beyond such things.
However, the slave woman above me turned my thoughts from both battle and wound.
Even in my injured state, my first thoughts were of having her on her back in my bed, her thighs spread wide and her knees bent before me. I wanted to feel her skin in my hands, taste her sweat on my tongue, and feel her body give way to my cock. I wanted to hear her screaming underneath me as I plowed into her over and over again. I wanted to feel her insides clench around me as I filled her with my seed.
“Hold his arms.”
I blinked slowly and turned my head as much as I could to see a man crouching beside me, bent over my side. He was grey-haired, wrinkled, and ancient-looking. My tunic had been cut up from the side and removed completely. As the old man pushed my arm out and away from my wound, I felt slender fingers wrap around both my wrists as they were brought over my head and held tightly.
“Can you hear me, Tribunus Faustus?” the old doctor-surgeon asked. I looked to him and tried to focus on his face, which was framed by the dark wooden beams on the ceiling above him.
I swallowed once, closed my eyes, and nodded.
“Drink this.” I felt a cup being held to my lips, and I opened my mouth to take in the foul-tasting drink. I could feel it numbing my tongue before I swallowed, and I had to hold my breath to keep it down.
“You must stay still,” the man said sternly. “The more you move, the more pain there will be. If you are to heal properly, you must do everything I say.”
My head swam as I nodded again. I had been injured bef
ore; I knew what was to come. My best hope was to pass out from the pain, but the gods offered me no such solace.
With clenched teeth, I strained to keep myself from screaming aloud as the medicus removed the bandages around me, but there was no stopping the sounds from my throat. I could not lie still, and he stood to tighten straps around my shoulders and hips to hold me in place. The slave woman held my hands above my head as best she could and leaned her body over my shoulders to keep me pinned to the bed.
I felt a sharp sting as a needle pierced my side, and my body reacted against the invasion. I wrenched my wrists from the slave girl’s hands, but to her credit, she pressed her body tighter against my shoulders and kept me in place. I couldn’t move my arms down past her body, and instead, I found them wrapping around her as I entwined my fingers in her hair and held tightly.
With muscles too tense to do otherwise, I held her head to my shoulder and squeezed my eyes shut. I could feel her head turn toward me, and her warm breath crept over my skin. I held her head against me as she continued to press my shoulders to the cot below.
To his credit, the surgeon worked quickly to stitch my wound, and the woman did her best to speak in calm tones near my ear while he did so. I didn’t know what she was saying—the pain was too great to make sense of the words. I only knew her voice was reassuring.
With short, panting breaths and my arms around the slave, I endured.
“The worst is done,” the surgeon finally stated. From the corner of my vision, I could see him moving to gather something from a table full of bowls and potent smells. “The poultice will sting a bit.”
Sting it did though I managed to keep my cries to a minimum. Sweat dripped from my brow, and my body began to shake uncontrollably.
“Hand me the dressings.”
The slave pulled back and released my shoulders. Reluctantly, I unwrapped my arms from her and allowed her to move again. The slave woman reached to a table behind her and handed strips of cloth to the doctor. My head dropped back against the bed in exhaustion, and I closed my eyes, but still my consciousness remained as the doctor completed his task and bound my injury.