LOVERS

by Roxy Harte

  He uncoils the rope, letting it fall, then wraps it around my torso, my breasts, my arms…and finally…I can relax. Now, in my mind at least, it is just me and Adrian and the rope.

  By the time he hoists me into the suspension I feel like I could fly for real, though I merely hang in his rope. I don’t think my brain knows the difference, as far as my gray matter is concerned, I have already touched the stars. His rope does that to me.

  My back and shoulders scream, heat and pain commingling to send a rush of endorphins through my body, and his flogger continues to thud against my back. I love it. I hate it. I need it. “Aahhh!” I scream, nearly reaching my limit.

  I hang suspended upside down, my face at his knee level, though he is behind me and I can’t see him. The crowd I see and it embarrasses me that they are seeing me morph from tough girl to submissive, broken girl.

  I scan the bar, seeking Bianca, but she isn’t there. Her bar stool is empty, her glass drained and yet to be cleared away, which in my mind means she just left because Alex is quick to tidy. My heart sinks a little. I don’t know why I’m so disappointed she isn’t watching. I should hate her, but I don’t, even though I know Adrian is in love with her. For so long it was just Adrian and me. Yes, he still had others, both men and women, but they meant nothing to him. I knew he loved me solely, and that was a comfort because I have never really been in love until Adrian. I share him because I cannot bear to lose him. It breaks my heart to see the way he looks at her. All of the others have come and gone, but for now at least, I don’t see her going anywhere. She is in his life and so too, she is in mine, even though neither of us acknowledge just how deeply our lives are interwoven.

  Dizzy from trying so hard to distinguish right-side-up, I close my eyes, and Adrian seems to sense the change because he kneels beside me, taking my face in his hands, hugging my face with his touch, and then he is kissing me, filling my mouth with his tongue. I taste the salt of my tears on his mouth and realize that I am crying.

  He releases me, but we are not finished. He wants to show off the flip-through. This is our last pose and will be the most taxing on my body, but it is also my favorite. I hold my wrists out to him, signaling that I am ready.

  “Feeling strong?” he asks. I nod. He laughs and says to me, “You’re looking pretty sexy there, little boy.”

  I smile because even onstage he is willing to use the term of endearment he always uses with me. When we make love, I am his little boy and he is my daddy. To a casual observer, this might seem twisted, sick, I’m almost certain the therapist I used to see in Liverpool would comment on my gender issues resulting because of some childhood trauma or the result of being raised without a father figure.

  God, I hate labels. Gender Confused.

  I’m not confused. Really.

  I don’t have a clue, but incest is the last thing on my mind. For me, daddy is just the name I give Adrian, my protector, my comforter, the one who makes me feel loved and cherished.

  There really wasn’t any childhood trauma—unless crinoline counts.

  My mother named me Tobias, after my father, even though I was a girl. Perhaps, it was only a remembrance, or perhaps, even newly fresh from the womb, she sensed there was something different about me, because honestly I have always been who I am, even when she dressed me in frilly dresses and pinafores, lacy socks and patent shiny leather shoes, with my hair in tight curls and held back with brightly colored ribbons. I have always wondered if she kept me dressed like a porcelain doll to try to change me into what she wished I could be, or merely because she wished to savor each moment I was her daughter.

  So what? Because I shave my head and am more comfortable in army boots, suddenly she can’t find me anymore? It’s better she lives in Liverpool and I in Hollywood, a place that has granted me the freedom to be who I am. Weird isn’t relevant here.

  Adrian saw past my exterior. He saw something else…something loveable.

  I will be the first to admit the man is a player, but he loves me, and when we play, or make love, he understands my wants, my needs, and my desires. He honors my boundaries and I honor his, especially our shared boundary that we never discuss his other relationships.

  I watch as he ties my wrists, then he helps me to get hold of the ropes with my hands, so that I can help support my weight as he lifts me into a hunter-style suspension, hanging only from the rope tied around my feet and ankles, and my wrists. For me, this is dangerous, because of the strain the ropes put onto my joints. I help by focusing on my center of gravity and making sure the shift works. In this pose, I stay completely focused and on task.

  I look at him between the V my spread legs makes. For the audience he makes a humping motion, thrusting his pelvis toward my privates. He garners a laugh and applause. I know that he respects me enough to never use me that way, so I relax, readying myself for the shift. However, even though I am ready, even though we have practiced, it is still a shock when he pushes my hips through my spread arms, doubling me back, so that when my body switches places, I hang suspended, back arched, my feet and arms behind me. It seems in my mind that the pleasure and pain become one, each as much one as the other.

  This is our big finish, and the crowd goes wild.

  Adrian doesn’t linger, he kisses me before he lowers me, but it is not a long kiss. He knows I am strong, lithe, but he wouldn’t have me injured and so doesn’t leave me hanging any longer than it takes to lower me. I know this all in my head, but inside of my chest, the panic starts. I don’t know where that comes from or why—one minute, I am fine, the next, exhaustion hits, bringing with it a dark doom that wraps me, smothers me, leaving me sobbing uncontrollably.

  My stomach touches the floor, and I feel his hands moving above me, quickly releasing me. When my hands are free, he pulls me into his lap, and I wrap my arms around his neck and sob. He holds me, comforting me, whispering sweetness to me, though it is not so much words as unintelligible murmurs.

  I cry even harder, feeling like my world is about to face catastrophe. Maybe it is my adrenaline-released depression, or maybe tonight really has set in motion events I will not be able to stop. The raw emotion isn’t new or even unexpected; it is unpreventable and undeniable. It is why I am embarrassed to perform. I’m such a goddamn baby and all I want is the comfort of Adrian’s arms around me, his soothing voice in my head telling me that it’s all right, that I’m not alone, and that he isn’t leaving me.

  I wish I had the strength to tell Adrian to go to Bianca. It’s their night, after all. Their night. I hold onto him tighter, begging, “Please don’t leave me, Daddy. Please don’t leave.”

  Chapter 4

  Bianca

  I watch the show until the moment Toby breaks down, and then I can’t watch anymore. I run to the parking lot.

  I’m not an emotional person. I don’t cry, so why in the fuck am I leaning against my car crying? I don’t know how much time passes before Adrian comes to find me. Minutes? Hours? I’m still crying when he does, and I can’t tell him the reason for my tears. I can hardly formulate thought to even name the emotion I am feeling. Envy? Jealousy?

  I want what they share and fear I will never have it.

  Toby trusts him with every fiber of her being.

  She loves him with her soul, and he loves her as well.

  Why am I even in this picture? What right do I have to selfishly want to rip him from her arms? Oh…I do. I want to rip her love-filled eyes out and stomp them beneath my boot. Not really. I’m not an emotional person. I’m not violent. So what is wrong with me today?

  I do what I always do, I challenge him, and when he gets defensive, I get mad. I know I do these things and I hate that I do, but in the moment—I can’t stop myself. I shriek at him, “You did that on purpose!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You left her a blubbering, emotional mess so you could spend tonight with her instead of with me!”

  “That isn’t true.” He tries to hug me. />
  “Don’t tell me. I saw you! You used her, you pushed her…you broke her!” I accuse. “And now you are going to tell me you can’t leave her alone, you need to stay with her tonight, even though it’s our night. It’s our night, damn it!”

  “I don’t know what to say, Bianca.”

  “Tell me you didn’t come out here to find me so that you could cancel on me tonight.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Exactly.” I shove him away. “Sometimes you really piss me off, Adrian.”

  I open my car door and start to climb in, but he holds me back. “Please, don’t leave mad. Talk to me. Tell me where you are going at least.”

  I climb in behind the steering wheel. My hands are shaking I am so upset. He sees it as anger, but it isn’t that. I can’t even say that it is disappointment.

  “I don’t know where I’m going…somewhere…not home because Jameson has the boys tonight, and I’m not welcome there on boys’ night.”

  “That’s fucked up, Bianca. You should be able to go home regardless of whether his kids are there.”

  “Fucked up?” I laugh. “They’re his kids, they get priority, I get that, I don’t have a problem with him. Do not try to shift the focus to Jameson! What’s really fucked up is that while you had your little Girly-Que in there tied up, she screamed ‘Daddy’. So what does that make her, your daughter? Now that’s fucked up!”

  It isn’t. Not really. A lot of people I know in the scene roleplay, and I don’t have a problem with them. It was just hearing Toby cry out, “Daddy!” I couldn’t bear hearing that.

  “She doesn’t pretend to be my little girl,” he whispers.

  “No?” I demand.

  “No, actually, she’s my little boy.”

  I start the engine. “Yep, Adrian, that’s fucked up.”

  “Don’t go!” he screams as I peel out of the parking lot. I fight the urge to turn around and assure him that I’m not mad…because really, I’m not mad—I don’t have a clue what I am, but it isn’t anger.

  CRUISING HOLLYWOOD Boulevard on a Friday night is not my idea of a good time and between the intersections of Cosmos and Vine, I decide to go to Mann’s Chinese Theater and see whatever movie premiere is drawing the crowds. I don’t even care what it is…romance, horror, action…just so I don’t have to think. Sure, I could go to a dozen different clubs, but then I’d drink too much, dance too much, and end up in some nameless person’s bedroom and hating myself. Again. And I’m sooo dressed for a club, not public.

  I park and grab a raincoat that covers the dress but does nothing to hide the stilettos.

  Waiting in line, my responsible mind won’t give it a rest, demanding I call Jameson and let him know that my plans have changed. Perhaps he would even invite me to join him and the boys in whatever they are doing this evening, but after listening to his fight with Emma this morning, and realizing that the fight was mostly because of me, I decide against it. My irresponsible mind is cruising, sizing up each passerby, sexy, not sexy…

  Oh yeah, I could so get into his pants…

  No, not his pants.

  I should have gone to a goddamn club. I refuse to think about my two men or the two women who love them, but it simmers in the back of my mind. I need distraction…fast.

  The line was long when I arrived, I’d forgotten about that, how long the lines could actually get. The thought goes through my mind as I push forward person by person that this may be a wasted endeavor and that the next showing will be sold out before I ever get to the ticket box. I start to feel a little claustrophobic, manic…

  Damn Emma and Toby!

  “Crazy crowd tonight,” a man says in the line next to mine.

  After my brain trips over his English accent, it takes a second for me to realize that he’s talking to me. I smile politely, if a bit apprehensively, debating whether I should respond at all while sizing him up. He’s attractive, tall, medium build, with sandy blond hair and blue eyes. I decide he doesn’t appear dangerous, just maybe a bit forward.

  “It’s Friday,” I say, because of course that explains the larger than normal crowd and should be the end of our conversation.

  Obviously, in his mind, it’s a conversation starter because he immediately says, “Or it could be because it’s the number one action-thriller of the summer?”

  Yeah, I feel a little stupid right about now. My inner warning sirens go off as I think about how many women have been lured to early graves by talking to strangers who appear normal…attractive…nice.

  “Or that,” I say, taking a second look. His eyes twinkle with merriment when he catches me looking. I quickly shift my eyes, focusing forward, wishing the line would move along. God, why does he have to be that attractive?

  “I feel guilty about even being here. My kids will never forgive me for seeing it before they get a chance to.”

  Oh God. Kids? Is there a wife in there too, or have I recently become a divorcee magnet? Oh, that’s right, Jameson isn’t divorced.

  I try to not let my irritation show. “Boys? Girls?”

  “One each, twins. They’re fifteen.”

  I nod, wishing there was a polite way to ask if he is married, divorced, or other but then I wonder why I care. I don’t. I have two men I am juggling fairly unsuccessfully tonight, and adding a third complication would be ludicrous.

  I am four people away from the ticket box when the sign flashes: Sold Out.

  The grumbling begins immediately as the line starts to disperse. Every show in the theater is full to capacity? How does that happen?

  “Sorry, folks, that was the last show time of the evening.”

  I close my eyes in irritated frustration, knowing I will go to a club, just indecisive of which one. I troll through the regulars who hold court in my memory banks. People who I know are safe, sane…

  Maybe not sane.

  But definitely able to provide a good time.

  “Are you okay?”

  I jerk, my eyes popping open, and see the too-friendly stranger looking at me with a concerned expression. The line has completely dispersed.

  “I’m fine,” I say, then sigh. “Trying to think of another option for Friday night.”

  He taps his watch. “Saturday morning?”

  I shrug and do a head bobble.

  He laughs and sticks out his hand. “We weren’t properly introduced. My name’s Bishop Farrington.”

  I look at him as if he’s insane. He’s dressed nice, but he isn’t dressed like any clergy I ever met. Those slacks are definitely designer, and as I take a closer look, I decide the shoes and shirt are designer as well. “You’re a Bishop?”

  “No, no, although I get that reaction a lot. My first name is actually Bishop, but if it gets me any points, my parents were missionaries to Japan.”

  “Seriously? Your parents named you Bishop?”

  “I’ll show you my photo ID over a cup of coffee.” He points to the coffeehouse adjoining the theater, Café Java. “If you’re free for a few minutes? To be honest I’m in no hurry to go back to the hotel.”

  Can I admit I find his English accent undeniably sexy?

  I immediately pegged him as a tourist because tourists are always too friendly, everyone’s new best friend. I sigh, not wanting to get involved, but realizing I really don’t have anything else to do. I still have my backup plan, mindless sex with another total stranger—except it hurts to walk. How did I forget that? Oh hell.

  I look at the man introduced as Bishop and decide that he looks safe enough. It is just coffee, and we’re on Hollywood Boulevard, the most brightly lit road this side of the state line. Besides, conversation is always a good time passer if nothing else.

  “I actually have a few minutes.” I hold out my hand. “Even if I have horrid manners. My name is Bianca Castillo.”

  I didn’t believe him before, but as we sit sipping our hot drinks—his a straight coffee, mine a latte double-espresso—he shows me his passport and not one but two drive
r’s licenses, one issued by the state of New York, the second, Japan.

  “I’m impressed, an international traveler.”

  “It isn’t all glamour and excitement, I assure you.”

  “No, I’ve traveled some,” I admit, remembering my two years touring. “It can be lonely.”

  “Yes, I miss the family.” He pulls out his wallet, flashing me a picture of an Asian beauty, saying, “My wife, Hiroko.”

  I hide my disappointment behind a sip of coffee while he flips through the photos to show me a boy and a girl, posing together. “Pine Tree and Flower.”

  “Excuse me?” I snort. “Did you say your children’s names are Pine Tree and Flower? I’d have never taken you for a hippie.”

  “They live with my wife in Japan, their names are Shorin and Hana, but I have always called them by the English translation of their names.”

  “I guess that’s cute.”

  This time he snorts and I decide I like him immediately, because on first impression he seemed too refined to ever snort but also because he didn’t try to hide the fact he is married. I remind myself a cup of coffee isn’t cheating, then realize how disappointed I am.

  We sit quietly for a bit. I realize he wants to ask me something, though he stops himself twice that I catch before actually asking, “So, no ring, can I assume you aren’t married?”

  “Not married.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Nosy,” I tease.

  He blushes and I find that refreshing. “Yes, well. May I admit that I find your company charming? I know I’ve probably shocked you because I’ve already admitted I have a wife.”

  He pauses and I can do no more than stare, because it is becoming painfully obvious that he is asking me to have sex with him and I can’t deny the thought appeals, greatly appeals.

  “I’ll be in town a few days and I thought you might be available for dinner some evening, but if the thought of my having a wife…or of course, if you have a boyfriend… I will understand if you decline.”