Chapter 24
I thought I’d be back to myself by now, but I’m not.
Puffiness and swelling in my face is still evident no matter the amount of ice rolling I’ve managed to withstand.
Gonna just have to ride this one out.
The only place I can think to go outside of the club is Liezel’s. She doesn’t have to dance or take clients at the club as often now that she’s running it but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s at home anymore. It’s lucky that she was here.
“So how is everything going?” She asks, clearly seeing the state of me in her doorway. I don’t answer her, so she keeps talking when I flop onto her couch. “Well, I just made a decision to marry a man. Can you believe it?”
I look at the golden woman in front of me. Who even on her off day, looks like you should be paying her just to talk to you. “No, I can't. Feels a lot like giving up.”
After locking the door she walks over to where I’m laid out. She takes my hand, her eyes softening as she looks at me. “You know, in my mind I still think that you're only sixteen years old, but it's been a while since you've been sixteen.”
“Yep, it's been a long while.”
She squeezes my hand. “Sometimes we have to make decisions that aren't the best for us, but are the best for Lee. Do you understand what I mean?”
No one calls her Lee besides Lidia and Racquelle. I don’t understand the difference between us and Lee. “No, I... I didn't realize that you would have to sacrifice yourself just for the family.”
“I don't think you should think of it as a sacrifice, and it's not much different than what I'm doing now. I’m still working for this family.”
“It's going to be completely different. What do you mean? You're going to have to live with this man. You're going to have to be his wife.” I scrunch my nose. “Legally, you'll belong to him.”
“Legally, I can't belong to anyone, Nina.” Standing from where she sat beside me on the couch, she walks to her purse on her bar.
“But outside of that, I really want to believe that everything happens for a reason, and even still, I have a plan.” Returning with a tissue that I take, hoping I won't have to use it.
“You do?” I question, thinking that agreeing to the marriage was her plan.
She nods. “Yea. I’ve been with Colton before.
I know exactly what he's like as a person.
I don't think he's going to physically harm me, but I also know that he is as slimy and slippery as they come.
So a marriage to me might be what he wants on the surface, but there's likely something else he's trying to get out of this deal.
He's fucked over Dupont, and I'm sure he's fucking over Lafayette somehow too, and even the new faction.
He's a lone wolf, and though I don't particularly like him, I at least know that I'm not in danger, and that much I can't say when I'm working the club every night.”
“But you can handle anything. I mean, you're you. Dominating, strong woman. Put them on their knees and take no shit from any one.” My brows furrow, still not able to see her giving into the demands of one man. Especially someone below her stature.
“I am. And power play is fun. It's natural for me. Though Colton doesn't particularly like submitting to me—he does. So at the very least, I know I have an interesting few months ahead of me.”
Sitting up on the couch, I really look at my friend who has held me through hard times and saved more than she could know. “I don't get why you would do this.”
“We worked hard, Nina. Everyone worked hard to make this deal happen, to bring Racquelle to her rightful place, so that we could exist in this world the way women should.
We should be running it. We should be ruling it.
And though on the outside it looks like I am taking a knee, bowing my head, I'm still a Queen in this game, and the game isn't over.”
My eyes water, not from sadness, but from the love I have for this woman in front of me.
I have so much respect for everything she's done and everything she continues to do.
All I wanted when I was sixteen was to be just like her.
I tried my best and ended up making it my own, because at the end of the day I'm not strong like her, not in the same way.
“I know. You’re going to be okay. I’d never doubt you.”
I'm no dom, unfortunately. I'm the opposite. Destined to get taken advantage of, in a position similar to Liezel's.
“What’s really the matter then?”
“The man I told you about… that I slept with—” Vert is a good dom, he was, even without any preamble or context, perfect for me. That makes me weak. “I had let him get close, I'd shown him my hand, and now I'm at a disadvantage because I like it and he doesn’t feel the same.”
“I always say in power play, the sub is really the person in charge. They control the scene and they control what we do. We're making it good for them. However, some subs top from the bottom, you know what I'm saying?”
“I... I guess I just don't know that I can... I don't do it anymore. It was fun playing when we were getting here,” And it was. Teasing him, baiting him. But somehow I was the one who caught feelings. What the hell? “Now, we're here, and I have to stop. I don't know that I can stop.”
“Stop what, sweetheart?”
“I... me.”
She rearranges the pink streak of hair behind my ear. “Can I help you with anything? Tell me about it. Just because I made this agreement doesn't mean that I'm no longer here for you.”
“I know that.”
Her eyebrow kicks up. “Do you? You don’t have to be in practice to be familiar with what’s comfortable for you. I can talk with him, we can go into scene together. Does that help?”
“Going in scene together… I don’t think that will be possible. I know enough to be scared going under again even though, you and I, we worked on that.”
“We did,” she agrees. “Are you working on it with someone else?”
“Maybe,” a very generous description but it’s gotta count that for the first time in years, I’ve enjoyed sex.
More than enjoyed.
That stings even more.
Her eyes light. “Who? Who are you letting take you down?”
“I... I don't know, but it hurts coming up,” I admit, thinking back to when I woke up in his arms.
“Hurts like what?”
“It hurts to not hurt him back…” Too exposed. He’s too soft and caring and it’s foreign. I couldn’t trust it and my instincts were screaming at me to fight back. Even though running was as best as I could do.
“Is he hurting you?” She asks, no judgement in her eyes. She knows my past and why I'm hesitant to submit in the first place.
The sting of his rejection still looms heavy over me. My sore eyes and throat are a testament to it. He’s leaving even after everything. “He has...”
“He’s hurting you. Who is he?”
Her assumption is wrong though I want someone else to share in this ire that is my own. I can’t let her paint the unknown—to her—partner of mine in a bad light when he hasn’t actually done anything wrong to me. “No... he's not hurting me. No... he... he...”
My words trip all over themselves as I struggle to describe what it's like to submit to Vert and then be abandoned. “It’s good. He’s good.
I’ve been doing my best to get the memories under control in my head.
He’s not at all like I expected. Controlling or demanding isn’t the word.
He lead me right to the place I wanted to be and didn’t give me any slack to wander.
I loved how close he kept me under his control, never letting me deviate far enough to miss what he had to give me.
” Shaking my head at my own description, I admit, “I enjoyed it too much.”
“You can't enjoy something too much,” she winks, ever playful. “Though I imagine if the dick is that good, you might be disoriented after so long of it being a job instead of for pleasure. Is he on the list?”
“No. I haven’t had a list in a while,” I acknowledge.
Ever since Racquelle forced her Senior to inform the family of her assent, there has been no real use for me.
I sit by her side and wait for instruction to do what I’d grown used to.
Lure and killing her threats. My passion project on the side never interfered with me sitting by her and propping her up.
“But I'm still taking creeps out, you know, all those men that have preyed on vulnerable girls, ones like me, who just wanted to be cared for.
I'm still taking them out, and he thinks it's hurting the family. He...”
“Do you think it is?”
Picking at a nail, “I don't think so. I don't know for sure. Maybe I'm getting too much pleasure ridding the world of these fucking scumbags.”
She nods in understanding, her own bias for justice in this way evident. Then she surprises me, “Well, maybe you should let him in more.”
I balk. “Absolutely not.”
“Well, what else are you going to do? You can't lie to your dom.”
“He's not my dom,” I shriek unexpectedly. Mine? No. He’s leaving. He’s leaving me. “That has never been discussed. He’s…”
“Oh. The feelings I see written all over your face tells me he absolutely is, and if he's doing what he's doing right, I'm sure it does scare you.
Shaking my head vehemently. “I don’t catch feelings. I only tempt and then torture men.”
“But you don't want to do that to him? You said it hurts to not hurt him back. So you don't hurt him. You don't want to. That's wholly new for you and a partner. This is growth whether you see it or not, Nina.”
I don't answer, instead straightening a few of the colorful bracelets on my arm, the ones I'd stacked extra high to cover my scars.
“It's not you that makes these men do what they do.
It was never you who made him do what he did to you.
You don't have to punish yourself. You don't have to avoid loving someone else for fear that you'll make them be some way that they aren't. Whoever this is, you should allow them to see you.” Her soft eyes meet mine as she holds my hand to her heart.
“Let them love you. There's nothing wrong with you, and there never has been. My greatest regret in life is that this happened to you, and there was nothing I could do to stop it sooner.”
“I…” I inhale shakily too overwhelmed right now. Everything feels too visceral coming from her perspective. “It was never your fault, but it was mine.”
“You were young, and we're all doing stuff we shouldn't be fucking doing. You weren't born into this life, and hell, your life was hard from the fucking get-go. You're doing the best you can. As long as you're not taking out anybody innocent, we don't judge you. We would never. "
"But he does," I admit in a small voice.
"Probably because he doesn't know what you're doing or why you're doing it." She says, giving me her understanding gaze again.
"He cares about my scars. Wants to help me…”
She knows what I'm talking about as soon as I say the words.
“You need to let him see you. Seriously, Nina, don't let all of us poison you against finding someone you can love.
My partner's not meant to be a man, I'm meant to be with someone else.” Her lips quiver somewhere between a smile and a frown.
“But that doesn't mean that you don't have to be with a man if you're... if you're attracted to him, if he cares for you, if he shares your kink.
There's nothing more magical than that kind of connection.”
My tongue brushes against the blade in my cheek. “You make it sound like some kind of fairy tale.”
She sighs dreamily, exaggerating fainting back onto the couch, pulling me with her into a hug. “It might not be today, but I'd like to meet this guy, whoever he is.”
Before I can respond a message vibrates on my phone in my pocket. I pull it out to make sure it’s not Racquelle but it isn’t.
Vert: I’m not givin up on you. Come see me when you need this.
Liezel is nosy, reading the notification as I do. I’m grateful that I don’t have his name actually saved in my phone. It’s just a green leaf in the breeze emoji so for now, I don’t have to explain Vert to her.
“Sound like you’re being summoned lil’ sub. Better go get what you need,” she giggles.
Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, or I just want resolution but I gather myself from the couch leaving the comfort of my friend to find out if I really have it in me to take out the only man who’s shown me concern.