Chapter 31
Tuesday’s summer flew by in a whirlwind of activity.
Knife planned an entire three days in New York, landing at JFK on a Sunday evening, and then took her to so many coasters — El Toro, the Jersey Devil, the iconic wooden Cyclone, the Thunderbolt, and more.
He was like a kid on the coasters, his face lighting up with pure, unfiltered joy.
She loved watching him throw his arms up while laughing and shouting into the wind.
He’d asked for a list of must-visit restaurants, and made reservations at two of them, which meant she got to show him the culinary side of New York, and they had a blast.
He butterfly-gagged her in the hotel room the last night, put a bell in her hand she had to hold lest he stop, and then worked her over until she didn’t know her own name anymore.
She wore a butt plug lubed with his cinnamon oil concoction the next day while they explored Central Park and rode the ferry out to Ellis Island, her nipples and clit still raw and on fire along with her asshole.
The club rode to Sturgis in August, two and a half days out, a week at the rally, and then two and a half days to return home.
It was the kind of trip that exists in its own time zone, measured in miles, meals, and the amount of alcohol consumed.
The ol’ladies had prepped her for it, but she’d had no idea what Sturgis meant until she was in the middle of it, and then she understood completely.
It wasn't just a rally; it was a transient, five-hundred-thousand-strong nation of leather, exhaust, and unbridled noise. Knife held her hand anytime they were away from their camping area, and she was happy to have her vest the entire time. She belonged to him differently here, and he didn’t let her forget.
As soon as he zipped their tent, he expected her to assume whatever position he ordered — and the one time she didn’t because she wanted to help the other ol’ladies with dinner, he caned her ass and didn’t care that the rest of the club could hear her screams. But in a crazy kind of way, it was a comfort, reminding her that no matter where they were, the rules didn’t change.
Between the big trips there were day rides and weekend runs.
They stayed with the Birmingham chapter one weekend, and a few weekends later, both the Birmingham and Atlanta chapters came to Chattanooga for three full days, filling the compound with bikes, noise, and a nonstop party.
They went to Khan’s house to swim one day, and Knife took her into Khan’s scary-as-fuck basement dungeon for a couple of beautifully excruciating hours.
But she still had to work, of course. She went to Atlanta for a client, spent a week in New York, and somewhere in between all of it found a rhythm in her new kitchen — filming with easy lighting exactly where she needed it meant she could do less recipes at a time.
Meant she could focus on each one without trying to just get them done, and she thought it strengthened her channel, filming more often without exhausting herself.
Knife left her alone while the cameras were rolling, respecting her space and workflow, but once the studio lights were off and she was clearly finished, he’d walk in and make her drop to her knees to blow him, or bend over the table so he could fuck her ass, and often brought a cane or a loopy — or her favorite tawse.
She was always mentally exhausted after filming, and she loved him for helping to get her out of her head.
Best of all, after he’d thoroughly used and abused her, he’d help stow everything away and clean up.
It was the perfect counterweight, tethering her back to reality in the best possible way.
He also surprised her on a gorgeous day with an unplanned day trip to Six Flags in Atlanta, where they rode the Goliath, Twisted Cyclone, Batman, Georgia Scorcher, and the Mindbender.
Another week, they rode his bike to Dollywood to ride the Lightning Rod, Wild Eagle, Mystery Mine, and Dragonflier.
He told her he loved that she enjoyed riding them with him, and she was certain she’d never loved anyone more than she loved this complicated, beautiful man who could be both terrifyingly intense and wonderfully, boyishly free.
Tuesday surprised him with a moonlight cruise on the Southern Belle, clearing it with Dawg and Brain so she could steal him away on a Friday night.
On the first date she’d planned, he hadn’t known what the Southern Belle was when they’d heard the calliope downstream, and now he got to hear it up close and personal.
They sat on the top deck and watched the city disappear, watched the gorge rise above them on both sides, and while the loudspeaker told them all about The Suck, she remembered her grandmother telling her about it on that horrible drive back down the mountain from Homewood.
All of that seemed so long ago, the first date, the trauma of leaving the pack.
It’d all brought them to this magical moment, drinking fancy cocktails and then dancing under the stars while a paddlewheel riverboat carried them downriver, and then back to civilization. Back to the city lights.
She waited until late September to tell Knife she intended to drive her car to the Tail of the Dragon. He told her no, absolutely not, and she pointed out this had nothing to do with sex, and she was driving her car.
Eventually, they negotiated it, agreeing she’d ride the dragon on the back of his bike a couple of times a day, and that she wouldn’t ask him to ride in her passenger seat while she had fun on the curves.
On the way home, they kept the phone line open and talked as if she was on the back of his bike, and he told her he was planning another long hike for the following Tuesday, so their Monday scene would only be a twenty-four-hour one.
Usually, he pushed for longer, so she felt like something was up, but then looked around her at the gorgeous fall colors, and figured maybe he just wanted to appreciate fall before it became winter.
- - - ? - - -
Tuesday changed to wolf early Tuesday morning.
She’d miss feeling all the bruises and welts he’d given her the day before, but he’d packed two meals and a whole lot of snacks.
She had no idea where they were hiking, only that it was a long hike, but not so long they’d have to camp.
So, it seemed wise to go into it at one hundred percent, since her right hip and knee ached from the pose she’d been in most of Monday.
Two hours later, they parked at Foster Falls as the sun was barely above the horizon, the October air chilly without being cold. She heard the falls the second he turned his bike off, and she put her backpack on fast, anxious to see them.
They only walked maybe a hundred yards to an overlook, and she just stood and took it in — water dropping sixty feet into the pool below, the sound of it filling the gorge, framed by the brilliant reds and yellows of autumn.
He led her down a trail to the base, and the noise and scale of it were more, standing below and looking up while the roar of the crashing water reverberated against the canyon walls and echoed back.
They climbed back out and headed north along the creek, the trail running close to the water for a few tenths of a mile before a steel bridge with a metal grate for a walkway appeared.
Halfway across, she looked down and through it at the water moving fast and white below, but kept walking because he seemed more in a hurry than usual.
“How far are we hiking?” she asked.
“Eight miles there, a little longer back since we’ll come back a different way.”
The trail looped back south along the opposite bank, and from this side the falls looked entirely different — same water, same drop, but the angle changed everything.
She stepped to within ten feet of the edge and then backed away from it.
Her wolf would’ve accepted it if she’d had a rope, but without one, the wolf was in ‘oh, hell no’ mode.
Still, she got nice pictures even fifteen feet from the edge.
“There should really be a fence here,” she noted.
“My wolf agrees, but from what I gather online, this portion of the trail is considered backcountry in a wilderness area, so manmade things are only put into place for conservation efforts. A few bridges to protect streambeds, but that’s it.”
The trail turned west and followed the rim from there, and their conversation over the next several miles was mostly about the trail and the view while pointing out the most brilliant colors.
It wasn’t a boring trail; there were several fun scrambles over rocks, long ridge walks where the trees opened up and the plateau spread out in every direction, and a few interesting stream crossings.
They stopped for the views they deemed worthy of the time, and kept moving through the rest because he seemed to be on a timetable. Still, the hours they hiked, the fast pace, talking about nothing in particular, was turning into a perfect day.
She had no idea of their destination until they stepped onto familiar rocks that ended in a narrow point with scraggly trees she easily recognized.
Raven’s Point. She just stood and looked at it from the top before walking toward the edge with the October colors at full peak against a sky so blue it looked like something a painter had mixed for emphasis.
Orange, red, and gold in sharp relief in the foreground while they blended into each other in the distance.
She walked down the series of ledges and rocks until she stood on the point with him beside her, and the whole valley spread below them in a tapestry of color with the other side of the canyon rising in the distance, the full depth of the gorge they’d been walking above visible all at once.
“You brought me back to Raven’s Point,” she said, unable to put what that meant for her into words.
“I did.”