by Liza Gaines
Coda
A Tangled Story
Liza Gaines
Coda
Liza Gaines
Copyright 2014 by Liza Gaines
Smashwords Edition
Cover Artist: Aimee Benson
Editor: Jenny Trout
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9899034-1-7
This book is a work of fiction. The characters and location are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to real people, alive or dead, are coincidental.
Dedication
To Vanessa North for working so hard to convince me Jen had a story worth telling. I wasn’t sure at first, but I’ve discovered it’s usually best if I do what V says. And thanks for trading me one pervy story for another. We should do that again sometime.
And to Jeremy because everything is always for him.
Coda
I’m usually pretty good at lying to myself. Some would probably say that’s how I got myself in trouble now, and they’d be right. But it’s time to be honest. I’m in love with a man who doesn’t love me. That’s a hard thing to admit because I’d always assumed things would work out in the end. Worse, I’d embarrassed Todd and he didn’t deserve that. I owe him an apology. Actually, I owe several people an apology, but Todd is the only person who will get one. Not that I wouldn’t apologize to the others if given the chance, but, realistically, that’s not going to happen. No doubt, after the way I behaved, my call wouldn’t be accepted and, even if it would be the right thing to do, I can’t quite bring myself to apologize to an answering machine. So, Todd will get his apology and the others can think whatever they like. It’s not like I’ll ever see them again anyway.
Todd called a while ago to tell me he was on his way home. He should be here any minute and I wish he would hurry. I’ve been moping around feeling sorry for myself since he dropped me off yesterday morning, but now I just want to get this over with. It’s going to be difficult and I’d like to get it behind me. I suspect Todd is dallying for that very reason. He wants to let me suffer for a while, let me think about what I’ve done. Well, I have and I’m ready to move on. But first, I want my apology to be perfect.
Since I expect him at any time, I’m naked and kneeling in the foyer waiting for him. He’s going to punish me, of course, and as regretful as I am for my behavior, for embarrassing him, I’m looking forward to the punishment. I always do. That’s one of the things that made our arrangement so successful.
When the front door opens, I resist the urge to look. I’d like to see his face, to gauge his mood. But I don’t dare sneak even the smallest peek. I know he doesn’t want me to look at him. He never wants to be looked at during a scene. He just stands there staring at me for the longest time and I can barely stand it. I feel itchy and anxious; it’s interminable. Did he see my bags packed and sitting by the door? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t said anything.
I’m about to crawl out of my skin, the waiting is making me that crazy. The silence, too. I hear his breathing, see the toes of his tennis shoes in my peripheral vision. I know he’s here. It’s driving me a little bit mad that nothing is happening. Words start to jam up in my throat, trying to fight their way over my tongue in such a rush they probably wouldn’t come out in the proper order if I let them escape. Just when I think I’m not going to be able to hold them back any longer, he finally speaks, putting me out of my misery. Or rather, putting me out of one misery and tossing me directly into another.
“Look at me.”
I’m startled by his request and it takes me a moment to comply. When I do, my heart plummets straight to my toes. He looks awful, tired and worried. But what bothers me most is the look in his eyes. He’s calm, frighteningly so. Anger I can ignore, but disappointment eats at me until I can’t stand it.
I want to ask him what happened but I’m confused and not sure if I should. Normally, he’d say don’t speak unless spoken to. That’s one of his bedrock rules, right next to the one about not looking at him. But now he’s told me to look at him and I don’t know what the rules are anymore. Maybe I am allowed to talk? Dammit. This was one of the things I always liked about Todd. Structure, routine. Clear rules that I could rely on. Discipline. I don’t know why but I get so upset when I don’t know what to expect, I can make myself sick thinking about it. So, while some might have found Todd’s rigid expectations cold and unfeeling, I adored it. It grounded me and removed a lot of the nagging doubt from my psyche. But that one order—look at me—is like a weight tied to my ankle, pulling me deeper in a swamp of uncertainty.
There’s blood on his shirt. Not too much, I can see right away it’s not his. I swallow hard, not wanting to think about whose blood it might be. There are too many possibilities, none of them good. But I have to ask. I have to know.
“What happened?” I cringe, not knowing if he will reprimand me or simply answer the question. And I’m so mixed up, I don’t know which I’d prefer.
“Lee was shot. Again. He’s going to be all right, the lucky bastard, and far as I can tell that fucking mess with his ex-wife is over.”
I wince at the sound of that name. Shot? My stomach cramps so hard I gag and start shaking all over. I’m having difficulty breathing, too, and my vision might be blurring. Oh, no, those are tears. Fuck.
Lee’s ex-wife, Cara, is a pretty well-known journalist. While working on an investigative story she got into an awful jam with some very unpleasant people and Lee was trying to help her out. Unfortunately, that got him shot and his girlfriend, Savannah, nearly abducted last weekend.
I could ask Todd how the situation was resolved, and how Lee got shot again, but I don’t really want to know. I’m relieved it’s finally over but I don’t need or want the specifics. As it is, I’m struggling with my own emotions; anger, worry, heartbreak, and regret. They’re all mixed up in one big quagmire. The particulars would only make it worse.
Todd steps closer and puts his hand on top of my head, a surprising gesture of reassurance from him.
“It’s okay, Jen. Promise.”
I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he looks sad, which bothers me a lot and makes my heart feel tight. I lean forward and rub my face against his thigh. His jeans are rough on my cheek. It’s not unpleasant, rather a tactile sensation that holds me in the moment: keeps me from getting lost in a jumble of worry and sadness.
“You want to get this over with, don’t you?” His voice takes on that husky quality it has during a scene and my skin breaks out in goose bumps. I shift on my knees, squeezing my thighs tight with a thrill of excitement.
I do want it now. I’ve been miserable waiting for him to get back, driving myself crazy with it. And I want to leave. The future seems like a dark, empty cavern. I don’t know what’s waiting for me, but I’m not going to start feeling better until I take the first step into it. Because the one thing I do know for certain, there’s nothing for me in the past. So I nod, unable to give voice to my thoughts.
“Go wait in the bedroom. I’ll be right there.” He glances at my bags and I wonder if he would’ve asked me to leave if I weren’t already going. I can’t really take the time to think about that though, because he’s just standing there waiting for me to move and I don’t want to test his patience. I start to stand but he pushes me back down on my knees with a shake of his head. He wants me to crawl. He’s not usually big on humiliation but I guess he’s trying to prove a point today. A point that, if I’m being honest, I probably have coming.
I turn on my hands and knees and make my way down the hall to the bedrooms, my head hanging low with embarrassment. I know he’s watching me go because, for one thing, I haven’t heard him move. But also, I just know. By now, we have enough of a history together, enough of a connection. Even when I’m bound, blindfolde
d, and wearing earplugs I can sense him and his movements which means now, with my senses unimpaired, I’m hyper-aware.
The foyer is tiled and my knees are sore from the time spent kneeling there. At first, the carpeted hallway is a nice, softly-padded relief, but it isn’t long though before the rug burn sets in and my skin stings with it. Fortunately, I haven’t far to go, and when I reach the bedroom, I sit on the floor next to the bed to examine my knees until I hear Todd coming down the hallway. I scramble back into a kneel and arch my back a little to show my breasts off to their best advantage.
Todd will enjoy the view. I’ve assumed his favorite pose of submission, my bottom resting on my heels, my palms flat on my thighs, and my head bowed. I’m careful to keep my long black hair over one shoulder so my body isn’t obscured behind a curtain of it. He likes to touch my hair, but he’d rather look at my body.
“Get up, come on in the bathroom with me.” Todd sounds amused. Sort of smug, actually, which means I’m probably not going to like whatever he has planned. He’s always been creative and takes it as a personal challenge to push my boundaries.
His condo is older and small, so while it does have a master bathroom it’s not very large. I’m a little squished against the vanity once we’re standing there together. Todd tosses a quart-sized Ziploc bag and a paring knife on the counter next to the sink and looks at me expectantly.
It doesn’t take much guesswork to figure out what he intends and he’s overly optimistic if he expects a little ginger to send me running from the room. We’d done it before and, while it isn’t my favorite thing, it doesn’t warrant the wicked glint he has in his eyes now.
“I’m going to jump in the shower.” Todd points to the paring knife as he adds, “You get the ginger ready.”
I nod, uncertain. It’s the only response I can manage and the only one he’d accept, anyway. I’ve never prepared ginger for figging before and it’s a bit of a fine art. Peeling it is easy enough, but you also have to carve a notch in it. That’s the part that makes me nervous. If I carve the notch too deep, it could become fragile and break. If it isn’t deep enough, it won’t hold the ginger in place. Either scenario is not good and I start to freak out a little, my palms sweating and my heart racing. He wants me to do this?
“You’ll be fine.” Todd takes a step away from me, which isn’t very far in the confines of the close room, and tugs the blood stained T-shirt over his head. I gape at him because, well, he’s got a damn fine body and watching him undress is a hell of a lot easier than tackling the chore he’s just assigned. Todd’s a retired Army Ranger, though from the looks of him, you’d never guess he isn’t active duty. He keeps his brown hair buzz cut and his body in peak shape, always ready for action. Head to toe, he’s a military stereotype. Until he looks you in the eye, anyway. His warm, chocolate brown eyes belie the softy hiding under the hardass image he works so hard to maintain. But I don’t have time to contemplate that now because he turns his back to me, reaching into the shower to turn the nozzle on and adjust the temperature, and says, “Now, get busy. I don’t plan to be in here long and you’d better be finished when I am.”
With a deep, bracing breath I remove the ginger from the bag and turn it over. A big piece like this is called a hand of ginger and each of the protrusions a finger. Concentrating on choosing the right one, and doing my level best to ignore the sight of Todd in my peripheral vision as he finishes undressing, is doing a fairly decent job of distracting me from my worry about messing this up.
I pick the largest finger. I know you want a good-sized piece and if I start with the largest one it gives me more room for error. I pick up the knife, my hand trembling a little, and with one decisive cut sever it from the larger root. I turn the water in the sink on cold, give it a good rinse, then start peeling. Ginger is tough, woody almost, and it’s hard to leave a nice, smooth surface when peeling it. I keep rinsing it under the running water, almost obsessively, after every two or three cuts and carefully feeling it to look for uneven spots.
I’m not doing so well distracting myself now because all I can think about while I work is that I am getting the ginger ready for him to use on me. I had so underestimated him. Preparing the instrument of my own torture was ramping up my nervous anticipation for the events to come. By the time I finish, I’m clamping my thighs together trying to find some small measure of desperate relief and my hands are shaking so hard it’s impossible to cut the notch. Todd likes his showers scalding hot and the small bathroom is becoming fogged with the steam. The excessive humidity makes the smell of the ginger unusually intense. It seems like it’s invading all my senses and before long it’s going to invade me.
A snort of horrified laughter bubbles out of me with that thought and a moment later the shower turns off and Todd steps out, a curious expression on his face. No doubt he’s wondering what I found so funny, but he doesn’t seem interested enough to ask and I’m not going to volunteer the information.
After quickly patting dry and wrapping the towel around his waist he comes to stand next to me. He looks down at the ginger I’m holding, peeled but conspicuously notch-less, then catches my gaze in the mirror. “You’re not finished?”
“No, Master.” I held up the knife so he could see the tremor that made it impossible for me to proceed without possibly cutting myself in the process.
“I’ll help you.” He moves behind me and reaches around me with both arms. He’s pressed close to my back and I swallow hard, fighting the urge to squirm against his hard body, still slick and warm from the shower. He steadies my hand holding the ginger and uses his other hand to cover mine on the handle of the knife, guiding me through cutting the notch. “See, not so hard.”
“Right. Piece of cake.” I hate that instead of sounding lighthearted and jovial, as I’d intended, I sound grim and nervous.
Todd plucks the knife and ginger from my fingers and, leaving the knife in the bathroom, guides me back to the bedroom with one hand on the small of my back. His voice is unusually gruff when we stop by the bed. “Lie down on your stomach.”
I scramble onto the bed and ponder his mood as I listen to him move about the room. I had anticipated that he would be angry with me and, while his displeasure was evident, this isn’t the explosive response I’d expected. He seems almost pensive. I’m sure he’s tired and stressed, both from his experiences yesterday and, unfortunately, because of me. But there’s something else about his mood that’s bothering me.
After Lee was shot the first time he was in the hospital for several days, and the day he was released, he and Savannah got married. It had been a whirlwind relationship and, while everyone else was surprised, I was—am—crushed. I’ve spent the better part of two years believing I love Lee, believing he would eventually realize he loved me too. It’s hard realizing I was living in my own delusion.
While Todd would never confirm it, I suspect I’m not the only one who’s sad about Lee’s marriage. Todd is happy for his friend, it isn’t in his nature to be anything else when something good happens to the people he cares about. But they were so close. Two bachelors fucking their way around the Mid-Atlantic together. Maybe Todd thought it would always be that way. And if he did, I can understand why he might feel a little confused or disheartened now. He feels like he’s losing his best friend. He isn’t, of course, but things will be different now and that will take some getting used to for all of them.
And on top of that, I’m leaving him, too.
Poor, Todd. My heart constricts a little. I wish it hadn’t come to this. But the truth is, even if I hadn’t behaved so badly I’d still have to leave. It would be too painful to stay. At least I can give him this one last scene together. I resolve to surrender myself more fully to him than I ever have before. Just this once, for this moment, for however long this scene lasts, I will leave everything in his hands. He is all there is and my only wish now is to be perfect. I want us both to have this last memory.
“Hands behind your back.” To
dd leans over me and binds my wrists together in the small of my back. I recognize the feel of the supple leather of my favorite cuffs. It’s like being reunited with an old friend when I wear them. I like being cuffed, tied down, bound. But I hate having my arms behind my back like this. I always feel unsteady, like I might topple over at any moment. Even when I’m already lying down, as ridiculous as that is.
Even before he does it, I know what’s next. A blindfold, tied carefully so my hair doesn’t tangle in the delicate strings securing it to my head. With my vision gone, my other senses are magnified and I’m keenly aware of his every movement around the room. I have a brief, but searing, moment of panic when Todd’s muffled footsteps leave the room. I calm myself pretty quickly. He wouldn’t leave me alone for long and he wouldn’t leave me in an unsafe situation. There is nothing to get upset over. And yet, my nerves continue to thrum with a low level sense of alarm. It’s part of what makes this kind of play so exciting. The fear, the pain, the pleasure, the arousal. It all gets so mixed up into one big tangled ball of emotion and sensation that I couldn’t unravel if I tried.
When I hear his footsteps coming back down the hall, I turn my face into the mattress to keep from moaning. It’s pitiful, he doesn’t even need to touch me. Just listening to him draw nearer makes my body ache and the small muscles in my core contract with a rush of moisture.
He’s standing behind me, the damp towel around his hips rubbing against my legs, and I flex my thighs, trying to get closer to him. He just pushes me back down with one hand and then spreads my legs apart as far as he can. My knees are bent and laughter starts to bubble up again because I imagine in this position I must look a bit like a frog. An armless frog, but still a frog. But the mirth catches in my throat, choking me. He’s put both hands on my ass and he’s roughly kneading my flesh. My skin is getting warmer, tingling and I want to ask for more. I don’t dare though. He hasn’t gagged me yet and if he meant to and forgot, I don’t want to remind him. Not that I dislike the gag. I love it, actually. It’s nice to have something in my mouth to bite against when the overwhelming sensations threaten to bog me down. But today I want him, not a gag, in my mouth.