The Bondage Club

by Alexandrea Weis

  She sat up next to him and gently helped lift his arm over his chest. He grimaced and gritted his teeth as Cary moved him to an upright position in the bed.

  “Maybe I should take you to the ER.”

  “And tell them what? You practically raped me?”

  She sat back on her heels. “I didn’t rape you.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  “I thought you enjoyed it,” she returned, almost shouting.

  “Every time I end up in bed with you I’m either tied up or in handcuffs. What is it with you?” He was quickly silenced by the pain tearing through his shoulder. “Christ this hurts.”

  Cary jumped from the bed. “Come on, let’s get you dressed. I’m taking you to a place I know just up the road from here.” She collected her jeans and panties from the floor.

  Holding his left arm against his chest, he sat on the side of the canopy bed. “What place?”

  “An urgent care clinic.” She hiked her jeans up her hips. “I went there last year when I sliced my finger and needed stiches. They can help you.”

  “Forget it. It’s probably just a cramp.”

  She poked her finger into his left shoulder, making Hunter curse out loud. “There see, it’s not a cramp. I’m a woman, I know cramps and that’s not a cramp.”

  “It’s in my arm, not my….” His eyes ran down her semi-naked body. “Uterus.”

  “Stop arguing with me.” She yanked up her zipper and began to look around for her T-shirt. “You need to go and make sure you didn’t dislocate it.”

  “I would know if I dislocated my shoulder, Cary.”

  She grabbed for her bra and T-shirt. “Are you a doctor?”

  “What kind of stupid question is that?”

  She finished putting her bra in place. “Then we’re going to take you to the doctor.” Yanking her T-shirt over her head, she added, “The least a doctor can do is get you some pain medication in case you sprained it or something.”

  “Can you sprain a shoulder?” He stood from the bed.

  “How should I know?” She retrieved his boxers and jeans from the floor. “Use your good arm to lean on me and I’ll help you dress.”

  “This so humiliating,” he huffed as she lifted his black pants and boxers up his legs.

  “Stop acting like a baby.” After zipping up his trousers, she eased his shirt around his good shoulder, and draped the empty sleeve over his left shoulder.

  “I can’t drive like this,” Hunter admitted, adjusting his shirt.

  “I’ll drive your car,” she assured him, while he stepped into his black loafers.

  By the time they made it to Hunter’s car, parked on the street down from her building, the pain in his shoulder was a little better, but he was still unable to use his arm. Concern began to cloud his judgment as a plethora of worst case scenarios crossed his mind. He worried about how he would get to and from work, how he would manage his business, even the mundane tasks of everyday activities became a vexing problem if he could not use his left arm. When the rear lights flashed on his car as Cary hit the remote entrance key, an unexpected consideration overtook him. What if he could not type, but more to the point, what if he could not write?

  “You all right, Hunter?” Cary inquired as she stood beside the open passenger side door.

  He came back from his imaginings. “Yeah, look it’s feeling better.”

  She pointed to the car. “Get in. If it’s nothing, then they will tell us that instead of us worrying if it is something. ‘It’s better if you know the name of your demon,’ my father used to always say.”

  Shaking his head, Hunter eased into the passenger seat. “I don’t think that’s what I needed to hear right now, Cary.”

  Speeding along Peachtree Street, Hunter was amazed at how well Cary handled his car. She pushed the little roadster through some moderate traffic and was able to gear down at red lights and shift from neutral to first without any problems. Hunter hated to admit that when he had first bought the sporty car, he had spent several days trying to get the feel of the stick shift.

  “Where did you learn to drive a stick?”

  She maneuvered the car around a van. “I had three older brothers. They taught me everything. How to throw a football, pitch a curveball, hot wire a car, drive, fight…drink.” She smiled as memories warmed her delicate face. “They took care of me, but my brothers were the main reason I wanted to go out of state for school. I needed to get away.”

  “Still, it must have been hard to leave your family.”

  “It was at first, but then when I finished school and started making my way in Atlanta, I was glad I left. I needed to find out who I was and what I wanted.”

  “And what is it you want, Cary?”

  She shifted her attention to an orange building just up the street. “Here’s the emergency clinic.”

  Tucked between two higher buildings, the boutique-looking exterior resembled a retail business more than a medical clinic. The only thing that gave Hunter any reassurance was the glowing red cross placed above the glass front doors.

  After parking outside the entrance, Cary went around to the passenger door and helped him from the low car. “I’m not helpless,” he barked as she tried to lift him to his feet.

  “You don’t have to get snippy. I’m trying to help you.”

  “Handcuffing me to your bed was helping me?”

  She fixed his shirt over his left shoulder. “I thought the surprise would help loosen you up.”

  “Just tell them I hurt my shoulder moving furniture or something heavy.” He rolled his green eyes as she held the glass front door to the urgent care clinic open for him. “They don’t need to know the truth.”

  “Fine,” she agreed, following him in the door. “I’ll tell them it was a huge dresser. Way bigger than you. Will that make you feel like a real man?”

  “Maybe you’d better let me do the talking.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, after filling out pages of paperwork, answering a slew of medical questions, and giving them his insurance card, Hunter was seated on an exam table in a cubby hole-sized room, waiting to be seen by the doctor.

  “By the time I actually see a doctor, my shoulder will be better,” he complained to Cary, who was sitting in a chair across from the exam table.

  “How’s the shoulder feeling?”

  He tried to move his left arm and winced. “Not as bad as before, but still hurts like hell to move.”

  “I’m sorry.” She stood from the chair and came up to him. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. I broke the first rule in all bondage clubs and that is to make sure all activity between two partners is consensual.”

  “Bondage clubs?” He paused and stared at her in disbelief. “How many of these things do you belong to?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to keep track.” She paused and reflected for a moment. “There are a few straight clubs, some gay clubs, sugar daddy clubs, under twenty-one, over fifty, S&M clubs, fetish clubs…you’ve got to cover a lot of clubs when you work in this genre.”

  He sank into the exam table and the paper sheet covering crinkled beneath his weight. “And what club taught you to pull that stunt in the bedroom?”

  She wrung her hands together. “I never…meant for us to end up here.”

  “I find that hard to believe.” He rubbed his shoulder. “I could have sworn you liked tying me up.”

  “I thought a man like you would want an experienced woman in bed. Doesn’t that turn you on?” she questioned, sounding like a little girl.

  “Taking someone to bed isn’t a competition, Cary. It’s not about being experienced or experimentation. It’s about feeling good.”

  “And what about emotion? Shouldn’t you feel something for someone you want to be with?”

  “Mr. Donovan?” a voice inquired from the doorway.

  Hunter turned and took in the radiant round face and lovely blue eyes of a young blonde woman. In her h
ands was a clipboard, and in the pocket of her long white coat a black stethoscope poked out.

  “Yes, I’m Hunter Donovan, are there more papers I have to fill out?” he demanded, assuming she was part of the staff.

  She flashed him a breathtaking smile. “No, no more papers. I’m Dr. Kendrick.” She glanced at her clipboard.

  Hunter felt his embarrassment complete. Not only was his doctor female and blonde, she was also reasonably younger than him.

  “Are you his wife?” Dr. Kendrick asked Cary.

  “No, ah….” She looked over to Hunter. “His employee. He was helping me move some furniture in my apartment and he hurt his left shoulder.”

  “Your left shoulder? Let’s see what we’ve got.” Dr. Kendrick put the clipboard down on the end of the exam table and directed her eyes to his naked left shoulder. She pushed his shirt aside and inspected the scar on his left, upper chest.

  “Is this a surgical scar? Clavicle injury?”

  “Yes. It happened ten years ago,” he told her.

  “Bar fight?” Dr. Kendrick joked with a smile and placed her cool hands on his injured shoulder.

  “Ah, no. It was a car accident.” He winced as her fingers poked and prodded. “I was ejected before the car went into a ravine. I broke my collarbone in three places when I hit the railing.”

  Hunter noticed the startled look on Cary’s face, but the doctor’s continued probing of his shoulder made him glance away.

  “How long ago did you hurt your shoulder?” Dr. Kendrick queried.

  “An hour, maybe,” Cary confirmed, hovering about the exam table.

  Dr. Kendrick took his left hand in hers and gently raised his arm. Hunter damn near screamed out with the pain. “You think you could knock me out before you do that?” he said between his gritted teeth.

  “What kind of furniture were you moving, Mr. Donovan?”

  Hunter froze. “A bed,” he eventually told the doctor, figuring it was as close to the truth as he wanted to get.

  “A bed?” Dr. Kendrick returned to her clipboard. “Did your arm get caught or yanked in any way when you were moving this bed?”

  “Ah, I guess,” he answered. “I wasn’t really paying attention.”

  Dr. Kendrick removed a black pen from her top coat pocket. “Mr. Donovan, were you tied to this bed when it was being moved?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  Dr. Kendrick smiled for him. “Your shoulder injury is nothing more than a bad muscle spasm. We’ve been seeing a lot of this lately.”

  “You have?” Cary questioned.

  Dr. Kendrick jotted something down on the clipboard. “We call it FSOGS.”

  Hunter’s throat tightened with dread. “Which means what?”

  “Fifty Shades of Gray Syndrome. We get about a dozen cases a week.” Dr. Kendrick held her clipboard against her chest. “Just ice your shoulder for the next twenty-four hours. Take Advil for the pain and by tomorrow it should loosen up. You’ll be sore for a day or two, but that’s it. If you’re still having problems after that, come back here and we will do some x-rays.” She was about to turn for the door when she stopped. “I might suggest laying off the handcuffs for a while.”

  Hunter shook his head, chuckling. “How did you know it was handcuffs?”

  “The pattern of bruising popping up about your wrists; it’s a dead giveaway.” She turned to Cary. “Just keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t overexert himself any more this evening.”

  Cary blushed and lowered her eyes to the floor.

  “Thank you, Dr. Kendrick,” Hunter said as the physician moved toward the exam room door. “I appreciate your…advice.”

  “You two have a good evening,” Dr. Kendrick offered with a grin, and then exited the room.

  After the door to the exam room had closed, Hunter turned to Cary. “I guess this is one of those little lessons they left out of your bondage club class, eh?” He climbed off the exam table. “I don’t know what was more humiliating, you handcuffing me to that bed, or the doctor’s face when she figured out what was going on.” He struggled to fix his shirt over his injured shoulder.

  “I already said I was sorry. What else do you want, Hunter? My resignation?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I just get the impression you are trying to be something you’re not with me. The handcuffs, the bondage clubs, all of it.” He winced and held his shoulder. “Then there are times I swear I see the real you. Like in the car on the way over here; you weren’t trying to be someone else. You were…you.”

  She hesitated as her eyes weighed his. “The car accident you spoke of, was that when your mother died?”

  He took a moment to adjust his shirt, before he spoke. “We were coming from the office one night, heading back to my parent’s home in Decatur. She hated driving alone at night and I had gone along because I knew what would happen when….” His eyes darted to Cary. “She caught my dad with his secretary that night…me and Chris always knew about Dad’s affairs, but Mom…well, she was so upset she lost control of the car in a sharp turn. I was tossed out before the car went over the railing.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

  “It’s just another dirty Donovan secret. No one wants to hear about it.”

  “I want to hear about it, Hunter.”

  He was stumped for a comeback. He knew he should say something to break the deafening silence in the exam room, but the ache in his shoulder, and the innocent glint in her eyes was distracting the hell out of him.

  “Let’s get out of here. You can drop me at my place, then take my car home and pick me up in the morning,” was all he could think to say.

  “No,” Cary argued. “The doctor said to keep an eye on you. You’re coming home with me. We’ll ice your shoulder, and you can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

  “Not a good idea. I’ll be fine at home.”

  She stood before him, defiant. “You’ll go home, probably open a bottle of vodka, and pass out on your couch. In the morning, you’ll be worse off than you are now. You’re coming home with me.” She gave him a tolerant smile. “It’s the least I can do for humiliating you.”

  His determination to shut her out faltered. “You didn’t humiliate me, at least not before coming here.”

  Her smile deepened, highlighting the curve of her pink cheeks. “So you did enjoy it, maybe a little bit?”

  He turned for the exam room door. “I think you and I should stick to working together and nothing else. As a couple, we’re a danger to society.”

  Hunter hurried into the stark white hallway beyond the exam room, anxious to get out of the emergency clinic. Even though he was apprehensive about spending any more time with Cary, he did have to admit he wasn’t ready to go home and face his empty condo. Despite their disastrous attempt at being a couple, he still enjoyed her company and wanted to be able to spend a few hours together without the added pressure of sex. Never before had he wanted to spend time with anyone, even his family. People usually bored him with their predictability and self-centered conversation, but Cary was different. His opinions and ideas mattered to her. She encouraged him and that was what touched Hunter most of all. Everyone yearned to be heard; it was just a shock to the system, in a world filled with talkers, to find someone willing to listen.

  Chapter 12

  The sun was shining through the blue curtains on the side of the white canopy bed when Hunter opened his eyes. Staring up at the sheer blue drape, he had to blink his eyes a few times before he could comprehend what he was seeing. When he moved to sit up, the shooting pain in his left shoulder stopped him. After rolling to his right side, he was able to push himself to a sitting position and take in the blue bedroom.

  In the daylight, the room was surprisingly unlike the Cary he knew. Porcelain knickknacks of ballerinas were spread out along the wide dresser, neatly bowed white ribbons held back the thick curtains, and about the bed were several white heart-shaped
throw pillows. He picked up one of the pillows and turned it over in his hands. This was something he expected to find in the bedroom of a devoted romantic, not a bondage enthusiast.

  A gentle rap at the white bedroom door made him glance down at his black trousers. Thankful that he was still partially dressed, he searched the room for his shirt. “Come in.”

  Cary glided into the room, wrapped in a thick blue robe and with a white mug in her right hand. At her feet was the orange and white cat he had met the previous night. When Sex Kitten’s green eyes spotted him on the bed, the creature went running across the room and leapt onto the blue bedspread. The cat came up to him purring, and Hunter scratched behind its fluffy orange ears.

  “I brought you some coffee,” Cary told him as she came up to the bed. “How’s the shoulder?”

  “Stiff,” he confided while petting the cat. “But I think the ice helped last night.”

  She handed him the mug. “If you’re hungry, I’ve got some eggs and toast waiting in the kitchen.”

  He took the mug and sipped the black coffee. “Actually, I’m starved.” He smiled up at her and lifted the mug. “Thanks for this, and thank you for last night. You really didn’t have to bring me back here and take care of me.”

  “Well, I felt responsible, and I couldn’t have you go home and not be able to do anything.”

  He rested the mug on his thigh. “But I feel guilty for kicking you out of your bed.”

  “Sex Kitten and I were fine on the couch.”

  He glimpsed his watch on the night table, and after putting his coffee mug down beside it, he gingerly slipped the watch on his left wrist and checked the time. “I need to get home and change before we head into the office.”

  “Perhaps you should call in sick today,” she suggested.

  He slowly stood from the bed. “I haven’t called in sick in ten years, I’m not about to start today. And we have a lot to do for the launch.”

  “Yeah, I know.” A small frown marred her lips. “Why don’t you get something to eat while I change, and then I’ll drive you to your condo.”

  Hunter’s certainty about keeping the woman at a distance languished in the pit of his stomach. For some reason, Cary’s happiness was becoming very important to him.