by Amy Valenti
I flung myself onto my couch, kicked off my shoes and sighed. It was like Callum could see into my soul, knew exactly how to get past my defences and chip away at my conviction.
He’d apologised. Really? Who did that?
Decent, reasonable, caring people.
I didn’t want him to be any of those things. It had been so much easier when I’d had a nemesis, someone to hate while I’d raged at a situation I couldn’t get out of.
Now, he’d given me three choices, including the ‘get out of jail free’ card I’d been longing for. Only now, I didn’t want to take that option. I was going to have to face the truth—I’d become hooked on Callum Connors after just one kiss, solidified the addiction when he’d spanked me and brought me to a toe-curling climax, and though I knew I should just walk away, his ‘option three’ kept calling to me.
I wanted to kneel at his feet.
Fear and elation swept through my system in tandem, making me shudder. How could I be considering this? Hadn’t last time been enough of a lesson? I didn’t allow myself near books or movies with BDSM in them these days, let alone people who might be interested in doing that stuff. With me.
It might be different this time. He didn’t hurt you yesterday. Well, not the bad kind of hurting.
I needed some time for this to sink in before I made a decision.
I picked my sketchbook up from the coffee table and dug in the pot on the windowsill behind me for a pencil sharp enough to sketch with. Flipping through the pages, I examined a few of my latest sketches critically before turning to the first blank sheet of paper. Since I’d gone into set decoration with Cynthia, a lot of my drawings were of interiors—rooms from books I’d been reading as I’d imagined them to look. Sometimes I went off the realism track and into the realms of fantastical, Escher-like constructions that’d be impossible to pull off on the budgets we had to work with, and stuff that was just physically impossible. On the rare occasions I wasn’t drawing interiors, I drew people, just to practise my technique.
With no particular design in mind, I started to sketch, shoving aside the troubling thoughts of Callum and BDSM whenever they started to nudge back into my consciousness. A room started to take shape on the page, and I sketched in a bed without thinking about it. It made me remember the way Callum had lounged back on the bed in the bedroom set yesterday, beckoning to Jacie to join him while the cameras rolled. He’d looked so sexy, and that was just while he’d been fully clothed. When I’d seen him in the costume department without his shirt today, my ovaries had nearly exploded from the sheer hotness of it.
I flipped to a new page absentmindedly as my traitorous imagination took over. What if Callum had been shirtless on that bed, and it had just been him and me there? How would it feel to have him pull me down beside him, cover my body with his and kiss me like there was nothing else in the world that mattered to him?
Then it really registered that I was now halfway through drawing a reclining, shirtless Callum Connors, one hand extended in invitation and a knowing smile teasing the corners of his lips.
I threw the sketchpad aside with a groan of frustration. Goddamn hormones!
I needed a wake-up call.
* * * *
Two hours later, I was keying in the code to the door of an abused women’s shelter downtown. It didn’t advertise itself as such, in case the abusers of the women hiding there tried to get to them, but the knowledge was out there if you were female and knew where to look.
The keypad beeped and something in the heavy-duty lock clicked open. It had been a while since I’d been here—I’d always meant to come back and volunteer someday, but every time I thought I was up to it, I got halfway up the pathway leading to the front door and realised I wasn’t.
Today I’d forced myself to come here, and although my stomach was churning, I’d screwed up every bit of courage I had.
I cancelled out of the text message the owner of the shelter had sent with the latest door code—it changed often, out of necessity—and put my phone back in my pocket as I crossed the threshold. A small, solemn-eyed little girl was the only occupant of the entrance hall, sitting on the low bench that ran along one wall, and she stared at me over the top of the tattered paperback she’d been reading.
I shut the door behind me gently and smiled at her.
“You’re new. I don’t know you. But you knew how to get in.”
“Don’t worry.” I approached slowly, so I wouldn’t scare her. She was probably the daughter of one of the women sheltering here, and kids from that kind of background were often traumatised to some degree. “I used to live here, like you, and I came to see Trish. Do you know where she is?”
The girl was quiet for a moment, her gaze analytical. “You don’t have no bruises. Least, not where I can see. Are they under your clothes, like mine?”
I wanted to cry, or hug this poor child and reassure her that one day, life would be better for her. But invading her space would be the worst thing I could do, so I stayed where I was. “It was a long time ago that I lived here. I got away from the man who gave me bruises”—and much more—”and now I have a new home. And nobody gives me bruises now.”
The kid nodded slowly, like I’d passed some kind of test. Then, without taking her eyes off me, she yelled loudly enough to make me wince. “Tri-iiish!”
Hurrying footsteps approached. “My, oh my, what on earth is that almighty noise?”
Despite the way the girl had startled me, I couldn’t help but smile at the familiar voice with its soft Southern undertone. As a large-bosomed, grandmotherly figure rounded the corner, I called, “It’s just me, Trish!”
Trish beamed from ear to ear and enveloped me in a hug. “So good to see you, Kat. I see you’ve already met Rochelle.”
“I did,” I said into her shoulder, fighting the tears that stung my eyelids. “Sorry I haven’t been able to visit in person until now.”
“You have your reasons.” Trish drew back and cupped my face in her hands, concern replacing her smile. “And it seems like you have reasons for coming back, too. Come along with me and I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee.”
Whispering a thank you, I glanced around for the little girl, Rochelle, so I could tell her it’d been nice to meet her. The bench where she’d been sitting was now vacant; she’d disappeared while I’d been distracted.
Shrugging to myself, I followed Trish through to the kitchen, where a couple of preschool-age boys were making a significant dent in a package of cookies and getting crumbs everywhere. They looked up guiltily as Trish walked in, but she only laughed and told them to take some of the cookies back to their mother. The boys either thought that was a great idea, or were pretending to, so they could take their find elsewhere to finish off the lot. I stepped aside as they charged out into the hallway, both holding onto one end of the package as though neither one trusted the other to give him a fair share. Where cookies were concerned, my sister and I had been the same way when we were their age.
I set about cleaning up the mess they’d made while Trish made coffee. She reminded me of the Oracle character from The Matrix, all domestic and smiling and obsessed with cookies. This was like old times, which was both frightening and comforting.
She didn’t press me for information about the reason for my visit until we were seated in Trish’s office, with the door firmly locked against interruptions. “What brings you here, Kat, honey?”
I took a sip of coffee while she waited patiently. It had taken me forever to open up the first time I’d been here, and she’d been just the same back then. After a few moments, I asked her, “You remember why I came here originally?”
Trish nodded. “I do.”
We didn’t need to get into any more detail. It was enough just to acknowledge the past before I explained my current dilemma.
“There’s a guy interested in me, and he’s into…that.”
“Ahh.” Disapproval creased Trish’s face. “Have you told him no?”
<
br /> “That was the first thing I did. Even though he’s…” I couldn’t help a shiver of guilty pleasure when I thought about Callum. “If he didn’t want to do that stuff with me, I’d have slept with him already.”
“But he does,” Trish said gently.
“And telling him no hasn’t stopped him from being interested.” I sighed. “Or me from being interested back. I…” Dropping my voice to a whisper out of embarrassment more than necessity, I leaned forward in my chair. “I let him spank my ass yesterday, and I liked it. Trish, how can I be so stupid? I already know how this ends.”
She took my hand. “Honey, I’ve heard the same words—minus the spanking part—from a hundred different women. Most of them end up back here. Some I never hear from again, and I don’t know if that’s because they found their happily-ever-afters or because they’re dead.”
The shiver that went through me now was born of dread. I knew it was common for people to end up here more than once, and for people to be killed by their abusers. “But he doesn’t feel dangerous to me. Not that kind of dangerous. Just a good kind, if that even makes sense.”
“Did your ex feel dangerous?”
“Not really,” I whispered, my heart sinking. “Not until he…”
That was what it all came down to. I couldn’t trust my own judgement. My heart told me that Callum was safe to be around, but what was that quote? Something like, ‘the heart is deceitful above all things’?
“What you have to ask yourself is what kind of man enjoys hurting women enough to make a game out of it?” Trish leaned forward, concern furrowing her brow. “I know there’s been some acceptance of this kind of thing, what with those books getting so big and women falling all over themselves to talk about how much they’d love to be in the heroine’s position…but a book is what got you into trouble in the first place, right?”
I couldn’t help but get defensive at her words. Not about the books, but… “What kind of women enjoys the thought of being tied up and dominated and beaten by a man, then? Surely if it’s okay for me to be feeling it, there must be some reason why the men on the opposite side enjoy it too?”
Trish sighed. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with you, Kat. Just that fantasies are fantasies. If you try to make them reality… Well, you’ve already found out how that ends, right?”
I put down my coffee. Suddenly I just didn’t feel like putting anything in my stomach. The nervous nausea I’d had when I’d come to the front door of the shelter had returned, and I didn’t know what to believe, or why I was so confused when Trish was saying things that made perfect sense.
“Have you ever heard of people having that sort of relationship and being happy in it? In real life, I mean?”
Trish shook her head, sympathy radiating from her. “Honey, I’ve lived a lot of years and helped a lot of people get out of abusive relationships. You and one other person have been the only ones who’ve mentioned this BDSM crap to me, and both of you did it with tears on your faces and bruises all over you. I’ve rarely seen someone as traumatised as you were.”
She stood up and reached for my hand. “I’m gonna do the rounds, make sure everyone has had enough to eat and whatnot. You don’t have to if you don’t feel up to it, but maybe it would be a good idea for you to come with me.”
She didn’t add ‘to see what you could look like if you decide to give a man permission to beat you again’, but she didn’t need to. And wasn’t this why I’d come, really? To refresh my memory where the past was concerned, and to find the resolve to keep Callum at arm’s length?
I took Trish’s hand and got to my feet. “Sure. No problem.”
I lasted only until I entered one of the four mini-dormitories. The shelter was way bigger than most, I gathered—Trish’s husband had been wealthy and had died young. She’d put all the money she’d inherited from him into buying and running this place. I’d never asked if it was because he’d been abusive to her before his death, or how he’d died, but I had my suspicions.
There were six bunk beds in each room, and the room we visited first was the one I’d stayed in back when I was eighteen.
I couldn’t tell how many of the beds were currently occupied, but I knew some of them would be taken by children who’d fled domestic violence with their mothers. Five kids were playing with the toys in one corner, heartbreakingly quietly for children, as though they’d been disciplined for being too loud so many times that it was automatic for them to censor themselves now. Two of the women sat side by side on plastic chairs and talked. The remaining woman was curled into a foetal position on one of the bottom bunks, her back to the doorway. I tried not to stare as we passed, but even from here I could see the bruises on the back of her neck and side of her face.
It was a chilling reminder of the way I’d been the day I’d arrived. Everything had hurt—my body, my pride and my heart. I hadn’t felt like eating or interacting with anyone. After Trish had admitted me to the dormitory, I’d lain here for hours, waiting for him to break down the door and find me.
“Trish, I’m sorry. I need to leave.”
She accompanied me out of the room, excusing herself quietly from the other women. “Don’t think you’re going out there and driving in that condition, Kat. You’re as white as a sheet. If you don’t sit down you’ll pass out—here, sit.”
She led me to the bench Rochelle had been sitting on earlier, and I flopped down on it numbly. For some reason, I couldn’t even cry for my past self, for the shadow of her that still lived in my brain, or for the scared, hopeless woman on the bed in the next room. I was just exhausted and trembly all of a sudden.
“I need to get out of here. I’m sorry. I’ll go for a walk before I get in the car, get some fresh air.”
“Not without eating some cookies, you won’t. Rochelle, could you grab me the cookie jar, honey?”
I hadn’t even realised the girl was within earshot, but within a minute she was at my side, holding out a ceramic jar shaped like a teddy bear. “Here. They’re chocolate chip.”
I glanced at Trish, who was wearing her no-nonsense expression. I knew better than to argue with her and took a cookie meekly. “Thank you,” I told Rochelle, and bit into the crumbly sweetness.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I forced a smile. “Yeah. I was just remembering some bad things.”
She nodded as though she understood perfectly. She probably did, poor kid. “Cookies help. Not forever, just for a little while.”
I had to admit, I was already feeling a lot better. “They do.”
I left the shelter after one more hug from Trish and orders to call her if I needed anything. Rochelle waved at me, then disappeared with the cookie jar. I wondered if I’d ever see her again. For both of our sakes, I hoped not.
Chapter Five
Kat
The visit to the shelter had been meant to be a wake-up call, but I was more confused than ever. Yeah, I knew my past experiences had been screwed up. I’d been screwed up. Maybe I still was, despite years of therapy, and that was why I was so attracted to Callum. But I couldn’t understand why he was so tempting even after what I’d seen at the shelter.
At least I knew now that I couldn’t take Callum’s option three. Kneeling at his feet was something I yearned to do, but as Trish had said, fantasies were fantasies. It didn’t mean I should go chasing them.
Option number one made the most sense, but I didn’t want that either. For one thing, being his assistant—only his assistant—wasn’t so bad, or at least it wouldn’t be now he’d apologised. On top of that, if I got through the next couple of weeks with him I’d get an extra week of paid vacation time, and that wasn’t something I was eager to turn down.
Option two it is, then, I’d decided as I’d tossed and turned in bed last night. I could drool over Callum from a safe distance and chalk the whole thing up to experience at the end.
He wasn’t in his trailer when I got to work, and I wasn’t sure where t
o look. For some reason, after checking with makeup to see if he was there, I wandered down to the living room set, which contained the beanbag that had started this whole mess. That was where I’d first met Callum, and it was where I found him now.
“There you are. You’re due in makeup in ten minutes. If you’re late, I can’t protect you from Marcia.” I stopped on the border of the set, my feet just shy of the blue carpet we’d found for the living room.
Callum had been staring into space, but he turned at the sound of my voice. “Hey. I wasn’t sure if you’d be in today.”
I stayed where I was, tempted to close the distance between us but also feeling the urge to back away as he approached. “I took my thinking time. I’ve decided.”
He nodded, waited, his focus on me intense.
“I’ll stay on as your assistant. Just your assistant, nothing more.”
Was that relief I saw on his face? Was he glad I’d turned down his offer? For some reason, that notion hurt. Then again, he could just be glad he didn’t have to explain to Darren why he’d lost an assistant.
“You have my word. I won’t make any more advances on you, Kat. But if you change your mind, let me know.” He touched my shoulder as he passed me by, and I swallowed hard as a lump grew in my throat.
He’d taken it well. He’d promised to back off. What more did I want?
Oh, we both knew what I wanted, but he’d promised. I wasn’t going to get it, not unless I asked for it.
Why can’t he just take the decision out of my hands and kiss me?
I shoved that thought away violently. That was exactly what I didn’t want.
“Makeup, right?” he called over his shoulder, and I put my brain back into gear, following him down the hallway.
* * * *
Over an hour later, Callum opened the door to the trailer. “You in here, Kat?”
I glanced up distractedly from the stupid cell phone game I’d been killing time with while I’d waited for him. “Yeah, I… Jesus!”