Chapter 5
”You want the good news or the bad news?” Doctor Xavier Diaz asked, a scant thirty minutes later.
Micah was still thanking his lucky stars that Xavi had the morning off and lived close by, but since the girl was still unconscious, he knew things couldn”t be great.
”Hit me with it, Doc,” he sighed. ”I need to know if I”ve got to involve any outside agencies.”
Xavier pursed his lips, strands of silver at his temples glinting in the harsh, overhead lights. ”Well, the bad news is that, from a purely cursory investigation, she appears to be suffering from hypothermia, and possibly frostbite. From the gauntness of her face, I’d hazard a guess at malnutrition, too. I believe it’s added up to exhaustion, which is probably why she”s still out cold.”
Micah grimaced. “And the good news?”
Xavier gave the barest hint of a smile. “The good news is that all of it seems to be minor, so she doesn’t need to be hospitalised, as long as she has someone to care for her. And looking at her, I’m fairly certain she doesn’t have medical insurance.”
Micah sighed, but his relief was short-lived since Xavier hadn”t finished.
”Unfortunately, I think there”s more, and I can”t be definitive until I give her a thorough examination. I”ll need you to help me undress her.”
Micah winced. Stripping off a scared, defenceless, and unconscious woman grated on his principles, but he understood the necessity even if he didn”t like it.
He puffed out a frustrated breath. ”Sure, Doc. Let”s do it.”
The remaining Wellington came off first, and Micah sucked in a shocked breath at the amount of swelling and bruising around her thin ankle and the unnaturally bent and blackened little toe.
”Hmm,” Xavier pondered, examining her foot carefully and frowning heavily. ”This toe was broken a long time ago and never treated. It looks like there were already some circulation problems with it, which have exacerbated the frostbite. She might lose this one.”
Micah felt his gut clench at the thought, even though he didn”t know the unfortunate girl.
”The ankle has been twisted and sprained, but since she”ll need to keep off her feet because of the frostbite, that will heal well enough.”
Micah moved to hold the limp woman up while Xavier stripped the bulky coat from her and was thrown by the fact that underneath it, she had one of the club”s soft aftercare blankets wrapped around her thin frame.
As he fingered the ragged tear in the fabric, he recalled binning it a couple of days before, on refuse collection day, supporting his conjecture that she”d been around the club for a few days at least, if not longer.
Now, seeing the state she was in, he wished he”d found her sooner.
There was an odd shabby assortment of clothes covering her frail body. All were oversized and, now that her coat was removed, the stale smell of age and mildew was unmistakable, making him wonder where the hell she’d been.
When he unravelled the scarf from around her neck and caught sight of the tell-tale bruising there, his speculation became verbal. ”What the fuck, Xavi? Are those marks what I think they are?”
Even the club sadist looked grim right now. ”If you”re thinking that it looks like she”s been strangled, then I”m very sad to say you”d be right,” he agreed, tipping her head back and inspecting the damaged area. ”Hard enough to lose consciousness, and on more than one occasion in recent weeks, I would say, judging by the various different stages of the bruising.”
Xavier looked at the girl”s face again. ”Do me a favour, would you, Micah? Can you grab a bowl of warm water and a washcloth? I”m starting to think that”s not all dirt on her face,” he muttered grimly.
Micah rose and dragged his fingers through his hair. When he took a long look at the girl on the couch, he couldn”t help wondering what the hell they had gotten themselves into.
Before he followed Xavi”s instructions, he fired off a message to Logan, encouraging him to get over here as soon as possible. An unconscious, abused girl found outside a BDSM club had all the connotations of a nightmare scenario.
This was all panning out to be a potential shit storm. He could feel it in his gut.
An hour later,Logan, Joel, Jake and Connor had all arrived and the full extent of the situation had been uncovered.
For all that Micah was a Master Dom who loved nothing more than to tie up and spank or flog a willing submissive and see the reddening of welts and handprints cover her skin while she was bound and defenceless, this was an altogether conflicting representation.
The very significant difference was consent.
That small but crucially important distinction which marked the profound divergence between BDSM and abuse.
It all came down to the matter of choice.
Micah had seen a lot of things in his years as a Dom. The psyche of a masochist had been one of the things that had led him into the lifestyle when he had explored the phenomenon as part of his doctoral thesis for his psychology degree.
Masochism could be a way for someone to completely let go by way of a mutual power exchange. There were people who needed that in order to feel liberated, wanting to completely give over their free will to another person, in order to allow themselves to let go of all the stresses and responsibilities in their lives.
It was a way to calm the mind and no longer considered, in psychological circles, to be a symptom of mental illness.
But most consenting masochists, even the more extreme, stopped short of accepting the permanent or long-term damage that was demonstrated here.
The girl”s entire body showed evidence of both fresh whip and burn marks, many breaking the skin, as well as old scars.
Her wrists and ankles showed the kind of damage that could only come from prolonged and aggressive shackling.
At least one of her fingers pointed to a suspicion of broken bones, left unhealed, just like the toe on her injured foot.
And now that her face was washed, what they had initially mistaken for mud and dirt, proved, instead, to be bruises from a black eye and a bruised cheek, in keeping with being punched.
Plus, it was obvious that, although partially disguised by dryness and chapping from the elements, she was also sporting a badly split lip.
As well as the lacerations, she was covered in bruises. The fingertip ones on her buttocks and upper thighs disturbed Micah the most, and he found he didn”t want to contemplate how she had come by them.
Jesus! She was a mess! And so thin, she was almost skeletal, another sure sign of abuse.
He paced back and forth across the room while Xavier finished up his examination and pulled a blanket over the girl while Logan spoke in low, strained tones to Jake.
Finally, Micah came to a standstill and asked what surely must be on everyone”s mind.
”So, what do we do now?”
”Do we need to get her to a hospital, Xavier?” Connor asked. He”d been quiet up till now, contemplating and taking everything in.
”I can guarantee she’ll be discharged sooner than would be ideal, given the kind of on-going care she needs. Hospital beds are always in short supply, so like it or not, they won”t keep her any longer than absolutely necessary.”
The men nodded while the doctor continued.
“There”s nothing critically wrong with her. She needs to be warmed, fed, rehydrated, and rested, but those are all things that could be undertaken at home if she had one. Since we don”t know if she does, or at least a safe one, then the hospital admin would likely call social services to aid her and she may be found a place in a women”s shelter, but she is unlikely to get the care she needs in a place like that. She really needs to stay off her feet for at least a week so that frostbite can heal. Refuges don”t offer that kind of care.”
”So what should we do, Doc?” Jake asked, jamming his hands into his pockets as he gazed worriedly at the battered woman.
“We need to do whatever is best for this girl”, Joel agreed, nodding his head.
Xavier stood to his full height and looked the owners, and Micah, straight in the eye. ”Given the state she”s in, a hospital would most certainly call the police to investigate the obvious signs of abuse. There”s clearly the potential for repercussions there. I”m sure you”ve all considered the implications of having an abused woman found on the grounds of a club such as this one. It will certainly shine an unwanted spotlight onto both Club Risqué and its members. Inevitably, this is the first place the police are going to look for her tormentor.”
”She”s not a member,” Micah stated with certainty.
”You know that”s not going to make any difference,” Logan said resignedly, turning to look at the woman himself.
”Surely, she can shed some light on her own situation and exonerate the club from any suspicion,” Jake asked reasonably, looking from one man to the other.
”An abused girl, scared for her life?” Micah asked with a raised eyebrow. ”Because we all know how much the fear of reprisal affects the psyche now, don”t we? Even if it”s just from a willing submissive trying to get out of a punishment. Never mind someone who”s suffered chronic abuse and probably been intimidated into accepting it as their role in life. I don”t even want to go into how many battered women either suffer in silence, refuse to press charges, or just outright deny what”s happening to them.”
”So, we face scrutiny if we take her to the hospital, a shelter won”t give her the care she needs, we can”t throw her back out on the street. What the hell do we do? Seems like we”re stuck between a rock and a hard place”. Jake lifted his palms up in supplication, clearly frustrated with the situation.
”It doesn’t matter”, Joel responded. “She”s got to have care. Is the hospital the best place for her Xavi?”
The doctor shook his head. “Honestly, I’m not sure it is. While it may provide for her in the short term, I do feel she needs a lengthier rehabilitation than they”re likely to provide…”
He paused, considering his next words. “I”m also conscious of the fact that if someone is looking for her, then a hospital is the type of place which will be top of the list of places to look, considering the poor condition she”s in. I”m sure whoever did this to her would likely conclude that she”d seek medical care.”
Xavier looked back at the woman who at least seemed to have settled into a more comfortable state. ”In an ideal world, I”d take her home with me, but my job excludes me from being around enough to look after her properly. What about any of you?” Xavier directed the question to the four owners, even though he looked like he was warring with his own decisions.
”Fuck, you know how difficult that would be for any one of us,” Joel declared. ”Desi”s on bed rest herself. I can”t have her thinking that she needs to care for someone else, and you know she will. I just can”t risk it!”
Jake shook his head, too. ”Charlotte”s already run ragged with the baby. He”s just started teething and is still suffering from colic. She needs someone to help her, not vice versa.”
Xavier sighed, clearly torn. ”I could take her to AE, myself…say I found her collapsed on the hospital grounds. I work the odd shift there, after all, when they”re short staffed, so it wouldn”t look odd for me to be in the vicinity. But that might hamper any investigation into her situation, which I”m not really comfortable with. And I really don”t like the options of where she”d end up after discharge. They won”t keep her long enough to convalesce completely.”
”I can look after her,” Micah found himself saying, though he didn”t realise he was going to make that offer until the words came out of his mouth. ”But that means you”ll have to agree to her staying here at the club with me. It”s not ideal, but we could make it work.”
”You don”t think that will have her running, screaming for her life?” Connor, the voice of reason, asked. ”It”s clear, she”s been abused. How will it affect her staying at a kink club and seeing that sort of thing going on around her?”
”Well, for a start, she wouldn”t be allowed into the club, like any other non-member. And this area is all sound-proofed, so there are no worries about the noise disturbing her. We can review our options in a couple of weeks, when she”s had time to heal.”
Xavier nodded slowly, considering. ”It could work,” he surmised, almost to himself. ”I can prescribe treatment and care and come in and check on her as often as any physician would do patient rounds in the hospital and I can be on emergency call day and night. I live close enough. Plus, the one thing that gives me even greater confidence in this plan is that Micah will be able to take care of any psychological issues, and she”s bound to have them. That”s one aspect no hospital is going to provide, and equally as important, in these early days, as her physical care.”
The doctor seemed incredibly pleased with this new scenario, and he and Micah looked expectantly at the four co-owners who seemed nonplussed at the idea.
”Perhaps once we”ve had a chance to question her a little and find out what”s been going on, we could bring Andy Storer into the equation.” Xavier referred to another member. A Dom who also happened to be a police detective.
Logan blew out a breath. ”Yes, I like that idea. As much as I don”t want to involve the local constabulary unnecessarily, I don”t want the woman to be denied justice, should it become clear there”s a need.”
”Are we agreed then?” Joel asked them all. ”The girl will stay here under Micah”s care and with Dr. Diaz’s guidance, until she”s sufficiently recuperated and can tell us what the hell is going on?”
”Okay.”
”Yes.”
”Fine.”
And with that, Micah had somehow managed to become responsible for a battered, unknown woman who had literally fallen at his feet.