23 - ANYSSA/CAMILA
23
ANYSSA/CAMILA
“H ow did you get into kink?”
“I’ve never had a fascination with vanilla sex, but taking it to the limits that I do now isn’t something I’ve always done either. Even with you, I’m cautious.”
“I keep telling you that you don’t need to be. I can handle it.”
“I believe you,” he says, stroking my head.
We’re upstairs in his bedroom now. My body is sore and tired. When we first left the dungeon, Nazár gave me a full-body massage, rubbing a mixture of jojoba, sweet almond, and shea moisture virgin coconut body oils all over me.
As part of my aftercare, he makes sure to give me massages and hold me close afterward, reaffirming our connection.
“Princesa, I do not take pain and pleasure for granted. I won’t push your boundaries too far because this is all new to you. I won’t take it there until I’m comfortable that you’re ready for the next level. Sometimes, subs think they know their limits when they’re new to this world, but they truly don’t. Some push too far, and others are afraid to push far enough.”
“You’re worried that I’m pushing too far?”
“Yes.”
“Have you had a bad experience before?”
His eyes close, and he remains quiet for so long that I’m certain he’s fallen asleep. I rub his chest and kiss it before lying back in his arms and snuggling into his side.
“I misjudged a woman before. Thought she could take everything that I had to dish out. Equated her strength with mine, but nothing could have been further from the truth.”
“Your wife?”
He nods.
“She was into this world?”
“No. I wasn’t either at the time. I pushed her in other ways, tested her boundaries, and thought she could handle it. My pressure for her to rise to the challenge of being a wife, submitting to me, and understanding that I had her best interest at heart is what ultimately broke her.”
“How so?”
“Bella was a people pleaser, and what others thought of her was always important to her. The success she enjoyed in the film industry was her identity, or so she thought. I knew she had more to offer the world than what they saw. But I also knew that she needed to learn to follow me completely to get the best out of her. When she didn’t, when the pressure from the outside world came on her to give them what they wanted over what I wanted, I added more pressure instead of being her comfort and reassurance. Made unfair demands of her.”
“Such as?”
“Start a family, spend more time at home, be the gracious host I needed her to be at my business luncheons and dinners.”
“And what was her reply?”
“She tried but said she wasn’t ready to have a child yet. She still hadn’t reached a certain pinnacle in her career that she was striving for. She started coming home late for business dinners she was supposed to prepare or have catered. Then she started being out of town in New York, Los Angeles, or London, more often, shooting films.”
“And how did you handle that?”
“Not well. I would show up at sites demanding that she remember her vows to me. Expressing how important our marriage was before the outside world. She said I was embarrassing her and then . . .”
I wait for him to go on. I refuse to pressure him because discussing this is painful for him. As Nazár talks, his eyes are closed as though he’s reliving past pain.
“Then one day, she finally did get pregnant. It was the happiest day of my life, but it seemed like her saddest day.”
“Why?”
“She said that her career would have to go on hold and that once the baby came, I would apply more pressure for her to be home than before. She said she knew I wouldn’t accept her traveling around the world with an infant at home, nor would I tolerate the baby traveling.”
“And she was right, I’m guessing.”
He nods.
“Anyway, I told her we would work it out and make room for her career and our family. Five months into the pregnancy, she miscarried. I blamed it all on her because she was shooting a film in Spain.”
My heart clenches in my chest because I have no idea what he must be going through between losing his child and wife and his guilt. That could not have been an easy time for either of them.
It seems his marriage was already under pressure before the miscarriage. I can only imagine those had to be dark days afterward.
“You didn’t want her over there?”
“No. We argued before she went, and she assured me she would be okay. When I got the news, I rushed to her side, but she couldn’t even face me. She knew I blamed her, and it was impossible to convince her otherwise. It was in my eyes, my actions, and my words. When she recovered and returned home, she shut me out and sank into depression. We moved to Mauritius shortly after.
“I didn’t realize she’d picked up a nasty little drinking habit while on set and at the lavish parties she attended. It started before we met, and she hid it well. Even after the marriage, she did a great job hiding it, and I thought she only drank on special occasions, parties, or dinner parties. Part of that was my fault because I traveled so much. We both did. The issue didn’t show itself until she was stuck at home with no contracts coming in.”
“Did you get her help?”
“I tried in the beginning, and she refused. After a year, she finally gave in, but there was so much damage in our marriage. We both blamed each other for everything: movie deals not coming through, land negotiations failing, and our careers suffering because we were stuck in a rut and couldn’t see our way out. That’s when I came up with the idea of turning this place into a resort.”
“Seems like everything you touch turns to gold if the history galley you have on-site at the rum distillery is to be believed.”
“Well, it did before our challenges came. Things finally picked up again.”
“Did it make things better for you all?”
“No.”
He doesn’t say anything, and I rub the stubble on his face at a loss for words to comfort him. I wonder how often he’s told this story.
“In time, I found that she was having an affair with one of the men on the construction site.”
“Well, damn, that was bold of him.”
Shaking his head, he says, “She manipulated him into it. He was let go, and I pushed her to check into rehab, and she still refused. About a year later, she became ill when the construction was over halfway complete. She was hospitalized and diagnosed with liver cancer.”
“Oh no.”
My heart goes out to him, thinking about what a scary time that must have been for them. I can hear in his voice the love he had for his wife. Despite their trials, it’s evident that he loved her.
“She, uh . . . She was strong. Kept a smile on her face because, by then, she’d overcome the depression. I was scared she’d sink back into it.”
“She fought through, though. For you and her.”
He inhales deeply and then exhales loudly through his nose. I can tell that wasn’t the case at all.
“She was still drinking. Though she’d promised me that she would quit after the diagnosis, she hadn’t. I left town on a business trip and returned two days earlier than expected. The business meeting hadn’t gone as planned, and things went downhill. I returned home, wanting to hide away from the world for a while, and found her passed out drunk in the living room.
“I woke her up, but she was incoherent, so I carried her to our bedroom. When she woke the next day, I confronted her with the bottles of rum and vodka that I’d found lying beside her, along with the hidden bottles of tequila, brandy, and scotch throughout the house.”
“How long had you been out of town?”
“About three days, but I found out she’d had that stuff hidden here all along. It didn’t just pop up while I was gone.”
“Maybe she was beyond caring at that point. Sometimes, people get so depressed with a diagnosis, especially a terminal illness, that they don’t care. They want the pain and the sadness to just end.”
“Maybe. I’ll never know.”
“Unfortunately, there are some things we won’t have answers to. We simply must find peace in it and move forward in our healing. One day, on the other side, you’ll find the answers you need, Nazár. I think for the time you had her, you shared a beautiful love. Now, you have this place as a legacy of that love.”
“Didn’t protect her enough. From my family or the world,” he grumbles.
“Your family?”
“They never thought she was good enough. My parents looked down on her, and my brothers thought she was ‘easy.’”
I remain silent at that.
“In the end, I’m the one that drove her to her death.”
A chill runs up my spine. I look up at him.
“You couldn’t have, Nazár. You loved her . . . and from the way you sound, you still love her, or what you had with her.”
He clears his throat and says, “A part of me always will love her, just like a part of me will always have regrets. I felt like her place was here on the island, making a home for us, not out in the world.”
“Maybe you were right, Nazár. It seems that the world’s pressures, not you, started her drinking. You said she’d been doing it before you met. The world crushed her spirit, and drinking was how she coped.”
Nazár kisses the top of my head and squeezes me into him.
“We argued that night.”
“What night?”
“The night she died. It was the same night I’d confronted her earlier about her drinking. I overheard her making plans on the phone with friends to go out to a new club that night. They were going for drinks and dancing. One of her single friends mentioned the cute guys that could be there and the trouble they could get in. I overheard her say that what I didn’t know would never hurt me. She showered, dressed, and prepared to leave before I finally approached her.”
“Did she deny it?”
“She told me I was making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Were you?”
“No. I knew she’d do exactly what they wanted her to. She always had, and she always would. I told her that she couldn’t leave and that the marriage was over if she did. She said she was sick of being stuck between the house and the hospital, and for once, she felt good and wanted to enjoy the short life she had remaining.”
“That must have been hard for her and you.”
He nods.
“She left against my wishes, and I ran out of the house after her. I’ll never forget that it was raining that night. I ran after her, begging her not to leave, and when she got into her little sports car I’d bought her the year before for her birthday, she sped past me, kicking up rain and mud. I stood outside in the driveway and watched her go.”
“Then it wasn’t your fault, Nazár. The wet roads, slippery conditions . . .”
“And arguing with her husband.”
“Not your fault. That didn’t lead to the accident.”
“It could have. She must have been so upset that she couldn’t see clearly,” Nazár says, releasing me and sitting up in bed.
I rub soft circles on his back, and he pulls his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on them and staring into space.
“Even if you never spoke up, something could have happened. We sometimes assume the role of God when we think it’s up to us how something happened. In theory, it sounds good, but in reality, nothing is further from the truth. We have no control over fate or destiny. If it was going to happen, Nazár, there wasn’t shit you could do about it. So, you can sit on this island, lord over the resort, and think you hold all power in your hands, but you don’t. If you’re not careful to come down off that high horse, you’ll get a mighty swift kick in the ass on the way down.”
He glances over his shoulder at me.
“You can be upset with me, Nazár. I don’t say this to piss you off but to let you know that you’re unfairly taking yourself through misery because you think you created a situation beyond your power. Shame on them if someone hasn’t told you that by now.”
He runs his fingers through his hair, still staring at me, before he says, “I never shared all of that with anyone before now. Not even Leona or Gary. They know we argued and how she died, but not everything I’ve told you.”
Pressing my lips together, I rub his back a little firmer and say, “Thank you for trusting me with your pain.”
His eyes drift over me in a soft caress, and he reaches back and cups my face. I sit up and kiss him slowly, caressing his face, willing him to heal from the pain of his past.
When we pull apart, he smiles slowly at me. “Camila Martinez, you’re the most perfect and best thing that has come along in a long time.”
Hearing that, my stomach tightens, and I think I’m going to be sick.